Tamasha (film)

Plot

The film opens with Ved (Ranbir Kapoor) and Tara's (Deepika Padukone) monotonous back stories as people in the corporate world. A flashback shows, as a child in Shimla, Ved is fascinated by the stories narrated by a road side story teller (Piyush Mishra) who keeps mixing up his characters.

The film moves to real time where Tara meets adult Ved, while both are holidaying in Corsica. They come up with an amusing verbal pact to keep their real identities undisclosed. They explore the island together. They pretend to be "Don" and "Mona Darling" and talk in filmy dialogues. When she realizes she is falling in love with Ved, Tara decides to leave Corsica despite the romantic friendship with him. The story flashes back to young Ved who questions the story-teller about the reason for happy times ending quickly and notices each story has a sad episode in it.

Tara returns to Kolkata, India. Tara's father (played by Nikhil Bhagat) hands over his tea business to Tara, she expands it by starting a line of tea boutiques, taking the company ahead. She is off to Delhi for work and four years have passed. One day, Tara surprisingly meets Ved, who is now a product manager. They reveal their original identities. They plan for a date at a Japanese restaurant. She expects him to talk like the days in Corsica but Ved talks about business. She calls Ved up home to be intimate. Ved leaves for his home and next morning Ved wakes up on time, completes the morning chores, wipes the car, ignores the transgender on the way, lets a female colleague into the lift—all this happens on his way to the office. He fixes a plan for meeting Tara again in the evening. Each morning to evening, similar incidents repeat monotonously. On Ved's birthday, he proposes to Tara but she is unhappy with the real-life Ved. She declines the proposal. Ved leaves for his home by an auto-rickshaw. The driver (played by Ishteyak Khan) narrates how his dreams of becoming a singer were crushed. Ved breaks down and his residual mental disorder is triggered.

An exacerbated Ved due to his psychotic break, ends up upsetting his boss with nonsensical presentation in a business meeting. Ved begs Tara to come back to his life. She indirectly informs him she is fixated in Ved's divergent personality from Corsica, not the matured Ved who lives by societal conventions. Later Tara expresses her realization of hurting him and apologizes. Frustrated Ved leaves. Next day, Ved continues his office routine with a change, gives a diamond ring to the transgender and he gets evicted from his workplace for his continuous mindless behaviors.

Ved comes back to Shimla and reveals he was jobless and wandering for six months. After a tussle with his father, Ved gains introspection from a reflection in the mirror, he realizes that to complete his own story, he needs to meet the old story-teller. The old story-teller criticizes Ved's irrationality, and confronts him to complete his own story. This opens Ved's eyes. Ved narrates his life story to his family members. Moved by this, his father forgives him for leaving engineering and lets Ved pursue his life as he wishes.

Ved returns to Delhi and takes the diamond ring returned to him by the affectionate transgender. Tara, after finishing a business meeting at Oracle in Tokyo, heads for refreshment where she finds a note titled "Don Returns". Perplexed about Ved's presence, she moves around the office campus and Ved draws her attention with the "Don" personality from Corsica. The film goes into a flashback and shows scenes from Shimla of a free spirited-young Ved, a college going Ved and an adult Ved. The film returns to present day (first scene of the film) where Ved and Tara complete the process of putting up an elaborated skit on stage (in continuation of the opening scene of the film) a spectacle which depicts of their own life story.

Cast

Development

After Rockstar (2011), Imtiaz Ali began working on the project, collaborating once again with Ranbir Kapoor and A. R. Rahman. Anushka Sharma was the original choice for the lead actress. However she rejected the film saying the role role of the actress had minimal to do. Later, Deepika Padukone was cast as the lead female in September 2013. The working title of the project was The Window Seat. In an interview with The Indian Express, Ali mentions, "It's that thought which crosses your mind when you are sitting by the window seat of a train and watching Ratlam go by and you think, what if I get down from this train? What life awaits me there?" He justified that outside this window, there is a mythical world where one can be what he wants to. According to him, the window seat gives one a chance to drop their present life story and become a brand new person. Later, the film was titled, Tamasha. The troupe played by Kapoor and Padukone is one of the reasons for the film's title Tamasha as it refers to the Shakespearean monologue, 'All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players'. The title of the film stems from the lines by poet Ghalib–"Hota Hai Shab-O-Roz Tamasha Mere Aagey" that translates to, "Your most personal thought is your life's biggest Tamasha. Ali stated that the film is constantly associated with an artist who narrates his stories on stage. In August 2014, Teejan Bai was roped in to perform Pandavani and narrations of the Mahabharata for the film. In an interview with The Press Trust of India, Ali outlined the generalised storyline, "You meet a certain person and you are very enchanted by him. He is free flowing and your type and then you lose touch. Years later when you meet, he is absolutely somebody else." Ali went on to add that the film isn't autobiographical but has minor moments from his personal life portrayed onscreen. He was quoted saying, "Tamasha has that kind of love which makes a normal person extraordinary, which makes a commoner an artist." On the plot's inherent love story, he went on to add, "This is the kind of love through which you understand why you need a woman in life and how it takes you on a journey through which we identify ourselves."

Characters

Ranbir Kapoor's character (as Ved Vardhan Sahni) is about a person who is enchanted by stories, grows up hearing them and expresses himself by performing them. Kapoor plays a free spirited person who wants everybody around him to be happy. He plays a nomad, going out of his way to please people. Ved is an average guy who doesn't wish to tap into a special quality within him until someone comes along and helps him open up. The film portrays Kapoor's life in three stages–as a nine-year-old child, a 19-year-old adolescent and a 30-year-old repatriate adult. His character bears loose resemblance to that of Edward Bloom in the 2003 American fantasy drama film Big Fish. In an interview with The Asian Age, Ali stated that Kapoor had to look attractive in one way or the other but when he meets the character played by Padukone in Delhi, he had to look ordinary. His hairstyle and the colour of his clothes didn't suit him; pants were styled a certain way to make it seem like he had a tummy. The dialogues were deliberately kept lacking in vitality.

The character played by Deepika Padukone (as Tara Maheshwari) is about a quick, eloquent and emotionally agile girl with gentle gait. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror, Padukone stated her character as a fan of the French comic series, Asterix, which takes place in Corsica, France. In the film it sets out on an adventure wherein she meets Kapoor's character. They both explore the island and, along the way, they form a troupe to stage dramatic plays and fall passionately in love. Her character identifies more with Ved's journey, helping him to get out of the monotonic life. In January 2015, Ali roped in few working officials of the tea auctioneer company J Thomas & Co. Pvt. Ltd. for the film. They were not auditioned but directly chosen to play their characters. In an explanation to the connection with company and Kolkata, Ali was quoted saying, "Tara's family in the film owns many tea gardens. We've borrowed the title of "Darjeeling Impex" to portray the company for the film." In the film, Tara's father hands over his tea business to Tara so that she starts a line of tea boutiques, taking the company ahead.

When the characters Ved and Tara meet in Corsica; they decide not to disclose their identities, so he becomes "Don" and she becomes "Mona Darling". The film pays homage to veteran actor Dev Anand through this act. Kapoor took classes from mime artists to mimic the requisite dialogues.

On casting Javed Sheikh, who plays Kapoor's father in the film, Ali opined, "There was no one better than Javed sahib because the character originates from Lahore. There is a certain air about him that only Javed sahib can pull off."

Costume design

Aki Narula had designed the costumes for Ranbir Kapoor whereas Anaita Shroff Adajania for Deepika Padukone. They called the hues as an 'extension of emotions' quoting, "When character Tara (character played by Padukone) wears a rich wine top and breaks down, asking Ved (character played by Kapoor) to come back to her, she colours him emotionally. It's a wine tie he wears to work the next day, when his true self breaks out expressively."

The character Ved has two different wardrobes — one for the storyteller as "Don" and the other for project manager "Ved Vardhan Sahni". For the "Don" part, they created a sectional buzz in his hair with yellow goggles, kada and black 'dhaga'. Further, "Don" was seen mullet, a man-bun, a side buzz, layering clothes over each other in a jumble of kurtas, pitiless, blazers, army jackets. The yellow glasses are worn again by him in Japan when he meets Tara. The tee-shirt with a tracksuit jacket under a blazer and flat front trousers were given by Narula from her personal wardrobe. On the contrary, Ved wears shades of grey and keeps a goatee. For the scenes filmed in Shimla, Narula designed 90s style sweaters for Kapoor's character.

For the character, Tara, Adajania designed floral dresses with keds, long jackets, clean camel, white and burgundy in ankle-length trousers, shin-leith skirts and shirts for the office scenes. The accessories covered were a mix of bracelets of different materials with a watch, with the introduction of slim pinky rings. Padukone filmed mostly without make-up for most of the movie wearing only a lip stick on holiday (scenes in Corsica) and looking made-up only in the scenes she's in office or on dates with the character Ved.

The costumes for the supporting character were designed similar to the theme. Mythological characters Sita in the film has a heart tattoo on her arm and so Ram and Lakshman wear uniforms and thermals. Vivek Mushran's character wears a douch-ey neck scarf and over-dyed hair to portray virility. For the rickshaw driver (seen in the song "Wat Wat Wat"), they designed a neck-scarf and shirt of the same fabric, with a jacket over it as a variation of his public service uniform.

Filming

Principal photography began in Corsica, France on 9 July 2014 and was wrapped on 30 July 2014. Several images and video footage of the song "Matargashti" (previously noted as "Dil Ka Bayaan") shot at Bastia Museum Café were leaked in August 2014. Filming began in Shimla on 1 December 2014. It featured child artist playing the young character of Kapoor in unknown flashback sequence. Scenes with Javed Sheikh were filmed in Shimla alone. Kapoor was observed sporting a countryside look. In another scene he had donned as a graduating student from Jaypee University of Information Technology. The Kolkata schedule began on 16 January 2015, where Padukone was seen filming at the old airport and J Thomas & Co. Pvt. Ltd. The song titled, "Heer To Badi Sad Hain" was shot in Kolkata. The song and sequences in the song "Agar Tum Saath Ho" took over three days to finish.

The Delhi schedule of filming began on 29 January 2015. Scenes featuring Kapoor were shot at the Time Tower Business Park in Gurgaon. Padukone joined the same schedule, a day later, beginning the shoot in southern Delhi's Hauz Khas village. The schedule was wrapped up by 23 February 2015. Certain scenes were shot in Delhi from 10 March 2015, extending a week further. On 22 March 2015, filming in Shimla resumed. Three days later to the date, Kapoor was being filmed at Ridge road and Hill town. For the scene, his appearance carried a clean-shaven look and he wore grey hooded jacket, white shirt and jeans. Majority of the scenes were shot at Bishop Cotton School. A scene dating the year 2004 in the backdrop was canned where Kapoor delivered a lecture on stage. The next filming schedule began in Tokyo on 8 April 2015 and lasted for two days. Further, filming continued in Delhi for five days. In August 2015, the last schedule of filming began at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai. The filming was officially completed on 6 August 2015. In all, it took ninety-one days for the team to film Tamasha linearly in Corsica, Shimla, Delhi, Tokyo, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Music

The soundtrack album and film score is composed by A. R. Rahman with song lyrics by Irshad Kamil. The music in the film has been used as a narrative to enhance the inherent drama of the situation without dialogues whereas the lyrical work presents human emotions in different flavours.

The soundtrack album's first single "Matargashti" was released on 9 October 2015. The album was released on 16 October 2015 by the record label T-Series.

Release

Ranbir Kapoor had no releases in the year 2014. After January 2015, Kapoor had Roy, Bombay Velvet and Jagga Jasoos lined up for release. In order to avoid back to back releases with less time gap between his films, he decided to postpone Tamasha to 2016. Further, the producers of the film couldn't opt for a late December 2015 release due to multi-starrer films Bajirao Mastani and Dilwale, where Deepika was also a leading actress in the former. However, in May 2015, it was announced that Tamasha will release on 27 November 2015 and Kapoor's other film Jagga Jaasoos pushed to mid-2017.

The film was censored with U/A certificate on 7 November 2015. Scenes with bawdy dialogue references and comments addressing Padukone's character were muted. The censor board claimed it as the most lengthy kissing scene ever on screen, longer than the one picturised between Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor in the film Raja Hindustani. On 17 November 2015, The British Board of Film Classification passed the film uncut with PG certificate. The film had a special screening at Yash Raj Studios on 26 November 2015.

The film released on 27 November 2015 at an estimate 2100 number of screens in India and 571 screens overseas.

India

The film opened with mixed to positive reviews, with ravishing response over the performance of both Ranbir and Deepika as well as their on-screen chemistry, however they criticised over the story, screenplay and the unsatisfactory togetherness of the plot.

Critic Mehul of Deccan Chronicle awarded 4 stars (out of 5) and stated, "Imtiaz Ali, in this film, creates a different world and makes you believe in it till the last shot of the film."

Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today gave the film 3.5 stars (out of 5), writing, "In all, Tamasha is vintage wine. There are inhibitions that keep you from falling head-over-heels in love with the film the first time you watch it. Once done away with the initial hesitation, Tamasha is an experience."

For The Times of India, critic Priya Gupta said, "The route Tamasha takes is long-winded and plain boring at times." She gave the film 3 stars (out of 5).

Pallavi Patra of Zee News gave the film 3.5 stars (out of 5) claimed, " A clear picture of how twisted your life can get under the painful currents of life. All said and done, the clear winners in this 'drama' are the protagonists, more than the story itself."

For The Huffington Post, critic Supratik Chatterjee writes, "Tamasha is, in many ways, a culmination of the recurring themes in Ali’s filmography. It is tonally messier than his last film, Highway, but more emotionally satisfying than Rockstar and brings together elements from many of his films in a pleasing-enough manner."

Writing for CNN-IBN, film critic Rajeev Masand called Tamasha an uneven film that oscillates between inventive and indulgent, never quite striking a consistent tone. He criticized the script but praised the performances of Kapoor and Padukone. He gave the film 2.5 stars (out of 5).

Critic based at Bollywood Hungama gave the film 2 stars (out of 5) and wrote, "On the whole, Tamasha comes across as a colossal disappointment in spite of towering performances and chemistry between the lead stars."

In his review for NDTV, Saibal Chatterjee gave stars (2.5 out of 5) writes, "Tamasha is at best a one-time watch because of the sparkle the leads lend to it. It could have been so much more."

Surabhi Redkar of Koimoi pointed out, "Tamasha is different but not perfect. Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone deliver fine performances." However, she awarded the film 2.5 stars (out of 5).

Critic Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express reviewed in positive stating, "Deepika is luminous, and she is much more sure-footed in her part. Even though Ranbir gets more space, Tara is drawn with welcome depth." However, she gave the film 2 stars (out of 5).

Critic Subhash K. Jha for Firstpost stated, "This is a film that doesn’t entirely succeed in its endeavour to decode the heart's enigmatic excursions. But the journey is fascinating and admirable, though not entirely fulfilling."

Critic Anupama Chopra, in her review to Hindustan Times writes, "Tamasha starts to feel indulgent and predictable. The writing also gets lazy — Imtiaz settles for stereotypes and simplistic resolutions."

In her review for The Hindu, critic Namrata Joshi called the film 'ponderous and protracted'

Rachit Gupta of Filmfare mentioned, " Ironically, it has a story that tries to ward off mediocrity in everyday life, and yet the film only manages to evoke mixed reactions.

Satya Kandala who gives the film 3 (out of 5 stars) in his review, stated " Tamasha fall short of true greatness is Ali's indulgence with the characters and situations, which at times makes the film look like it is trying too hard and a little too kitschy."

However, the film received a rating of 7.2/10 on IMDb.

Overseas

Andy Webster for The New York Times emphasized reviewing the characters and the direction. In his review, he mentioned, "Imtiaz Ali actually celebrates two love affairs: Ved and Tara’s, and (given Ved’s universal adulation) with his own self-aggrandizing vision of his calling." In her review for Gulf News, Manjusha Radhakrishnan wrote, "The lead actors and Corsica look picture-perfect, but the movie isn’t free of blemishes." Sneha May Franics of Emirates 24/7 opined, "Imtiaz Ali's indulgent narrative isn’t quintessential Bollywood, and that’s not necessarily bad" In a review for The Guardian, Mike McCahill wrote, "Imtiaz Ali’s film is a surprising meta-narrative of archetypal star-crossed lovers, but its cool tricksiness leaves little room for surrendering to the story." Deepa Gauri of Khaleej Times awarded the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Tamasha is un-Bollywood in its rhythm and pace, yet endears you with its essential simplicity." Lisa Tsering of The Hollywood Reporter stated, "The film is a moving meditation on what it means to find out who you really are." In his review for The Express Tribune, Rafay Mahmood gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5, stating: "Great music, exceptional performances and a different take on love don't prevent Imtiaz Ali's Tamasha from culminating in a disappointment." Jay Seaver of Online Film Critics Society noted, "So it's a little bit bigger than a romantic comedy, although still enough of one that the story of a guy finding what he wants to be doesn't overwhelm it. It's not a perfect film, but it's consistently a bit better than expected." Giving the film 2.5 stars out of 5, Mohaiminul Islam's review in The Daily Star opined, "This is Ali's most complex story, teeming with ideas, and gives us Ranbir back again, along with the lovely Deepika, even if the plot keeps losing sight of her."

India

The film opened with 40% occupancy on the day of release. The opening day nett figures were ₹10.94 crore (US$1.7 million). On the second day the film collected ₹13.17 crore (US$2.1 million). On the third day, the film raked in ₹14.12 crore (US$2.2 million) nett. The total opening weekend collections of the film were ₹38.23 crore (US$6.0 million) nett.

However, the collections dropped in the beginning of the first week, collecting ₹5.07 crore (US$790,000) on the first Monday. Estimating for individual days until Friday—collections were ₹4.07 crore (US$630,000) nett, ₹3.32 crore (US$520,000) nett, ₹2.77 crore (US$430,000) nett and ₹1.72 crore (US$270,000) nett. On the second Saturday and Sunday, the collections were ₹2.84 crore (US$440,000) nett and ₹3.21 crore (US$500,000) nett respectively. By end of first week, the total collections (on tenth day) were ₹53.46 crore (US$8.3 million) nett.

The collections between eleventh to fourteenth day were ₹2.37 crore (US$370,000) nett. By the end of second week, the total collections stood at ₹63.6 crore (US$9.9 million). The collections between fifteenth to twenty-first day were ₹3.64 crore (US$570,000) nett. By the end of third week, total collections were ₹67.24 crore (US$10 million). The collections between twenty-second to twenty-eighth day were ₹2 lakh (US$3,100) nett. By the end of fourth week, total collections were ₹67.26 crore (US$10 million). Film's lifetime collection at the Indian Box Office are ₹94.92 crore.

Overseas

By end of December 2015, the film earned ₹14.88 crore (US$2.3 million) gross in USA and Canada, ₹5.13 crore (US$800,000) gross in United Kingdom, ₹10.84 crore (US$1.7 million) gross in United Arab Emirates and Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, ₹1.64 crore (US$260,000) gross in Australia, ₹30 lakh (US$47,000) gross in New Zealand, ₹4.05 crore (US$630,000) gross in Pakistanand ₹18 lakh (US$28,000) gross in Germany. In remaining territories of the world, the film collected ₹2.26 crore (US$350,000) gross.

Summing up the collections at Indian and overseas box offices, the film collected an estimate ₹136.63 crore (US$21 million)