Subtlety and Sentiment Still Sell in Bollywood

When it releases it hails. Or it fails.

- Balaji Vittal

In recent memory ‘hundred’ seems to have become the new ‘ten’ in multiple of crores with Pushpa, Jawan, KGF Chapter 2, RRR, Kalki, Stree 2, Chhaava crossing the €700-crore mark in gross domestic collections.

But then great expectations like Housefull 5, Metro In Dino, Sikandar whimpered out at the box office, while Sitaare Zameen Par returned a middling performance. Is it that sequels or ‘spirit sequels’ don’t work anymore? Or that the suffix ‘5’ suggests that the franchise has been beaten to death (and hence keeps the audience away)? Or that millennials are embarrassed to watch the heroes their parents did in the 1980s? Maybe a bit of all. Box office predictions are a bit like Gabbar Singh’s revolver. No one knows which bullet will fire.

Amidst all this, tiptoes ina “moving star” called Saiyaara, unsupported by any promos. Neither the lead cast of Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, nor the supporting cast ring any bell. There was nothing new about the story either. The beginning, with the girl’s marriage being called off at the last minute, made you feel Saiyaara was going to go the Queen (2013) way. A struggling musician's itch for a fast-track career on a loosely gravelled road could be Gully Boy (2019), while the impetuous, loud and angry Krish Kapoor (Panday) was, in many ways, Jordan (Ranbir Kapoor) of Rockstar (2011).