The Dirty Picture (2011) Movie Review

***Reader-Submitted Review***

By: Bobby Ghatak
(Bangalore, India)

Directed by: Milan Luthria
Written by:
Rajat Arora
Starring:
Vidya Balan - Reshma/Silk Smitha
Naseeruddin Shah - Suryakanth
Emraan Hashmi - Abraham
Tusshar Kapoor - Ramakanth
Anju Mahendru - Naila
Rajesh Sharma - Selvaganesh
Mangal Kenkre - Ratnamma
Shivani Tanskale






Welcome to the world of the 80's. Where sex has always been a taboo topic laid bare open only behind closed doors. With conventional morality bound straps, stretching taut over society. A world that was more regressive than today's permissive times. In such a choked world of socio-economic barriers, the males are either sexually starved or sexually ignorant. Where the three letter word was not an antidote but stamped as "Dirty". In such a world, Reshma forays into the Madras film industry to find herself granting instant gratification to such males and lustfully christened as 'Silk'.


Vidya Balan as Reshma alias Silk, plays the protagonist, said to be her biopic. Making her mark as a vamp, she briefly set the concept of a heroine turn on its head. For distributors, the necessity of finding eternal box office value, hit the right spot, when they discover serpentine queues to movies starring jaded ageing superstars were actually, a repeat value in response to Silk who, with her wailing moans and voluptuously fleshy body, grimacing to heavy dance steps pulverized the front benchers swaying to her movements. Bathed under a dewy sweat, these multitudes of men fantasized about Silk. She wet their appetite to break open wonderland, sorely missed in their conjugal world. She became a one-stop shop for 'entertainment'. Story, Hero and heroine be damned!

Silk laps up the frenzy and she bares her heart out to strangers, puffs her way to glory and sashays down the ramp of success. Just as her rise is meteoric, her descent downhill is equally fast. She now yearns for true love and bitter truth gnaws away at her when she is jilted by her amorous lovers because she cannot be the 'good' girl to show off to mother, or wife. Somewhere in between Reshma's heavy moans and tart-like make-up, the movie gets caught in the standstill of monotony and be dismissed as yet another remake of a starlet. It rises again in the latter parts when she spirals downhill, to be sucked under a vice like grip of alcohol and nicotine. The smooth exterior of silk is ripped apart to reveal a lonely heart now devoid of any desires. Her last ditch attempts to make a comeback pushes the poor girl further into penury and oblivion. Her verbal duels and angst ridden dialogues with Abraham (Imraan Hashmi) her staunchest foe, bring out the humane side of Reshma. She and her could –not-care-less attitude to Abraham's somber questions are like flint stones out to set each other on fire. And how the sparks alight, to find Abraham unwillingly and irreversibly drawn towards her, makes one rush forward, arms outstretched to cushion the tragic fall of Reshma, alias 'Silk'.


Naseeruddinn Shah is an apt choice to be cast as Surya, an ageing superstar who inadvertently helps Reshma usher in the Silk revolution. Who also extracts his pound of flesh in having amorous liaisons with her. The music is set to the 80's vigorously paced disco times. The dialogues are brilliant. Few gems: "The heart is always on the left, but its decisions always right." and "May you burn in hell. Ya and you would find that hell a bonfire to warm yourself."

A REVIEW BY BOBBY GHATAK