100 % Love

If you are thinking that something unexpected and very exciting has happened to me here in India, you are right.  And that thing is a Bollywood movie called 100% Love.

 

My roommate Claire had been raving about a movie called Don 2 staring Shahrukh Khan (the Indian "hero" that introduced Slum-dog Millionaire at the oscars) that she saw in Mumbai. She went on and on about how silly and amazing the movie was and she wanted to take me. I am a movie junkie so I agreed, but alas Don 2 was no longer playing. We had decided to go see this action packed movie called Agneepath, but when Hanna and Abby went to go get the tickets there were none and they went to another smaller movie theater down the street and got tickets for a new romantic comedy called 100% Love. As it would turn out we would end up seeing Agneepath the next week, but more on that later.

 

All Bollywood movies can be relied on for a few things.  There will be emotional turmoil, perhaps forbidden love, a powerful elder, a fight scene, an intermission and of course musical numbers.  100% Love quite literally had everything that you could possibly want from a movie and even more. 

The movie starts with our leading man tall and sort of good looking, dressed in jeans and a plaid button up in a pitiful place. He is fighting with his father (an Indian version of Jerry Stiller)  and is dissatisfied with his life in general.  As he walks down the street, he is as low as he can get when he is the target of a poop bomb and it begins to rain. When you think that maybe this is the end for this man a car drives by and he thinks that he is going to be sprayed by a puddle, but he isn't. When he looks the rear window is partially open and he sees a woman in the back seat. She is beautiful and the music swells and a passionate rhythm begins. The cars stops after a bit and we see the woman reach out her delicate hand with tacky long acrylic nails feel the rain. She leans out the window to feel the warm rain on her face and the man is entranced.  His life will never be the same.  We are now in the throws of our very first musical number. 

The scene is inexplicably swept off to the Himalayas?  Not sure.  What I do know is that we're on a snow covered mountain in some really impractical outfits.  The man is in a flashy suit looking very Vegas playboy.  Perhaps if we were in Vegas or some other city it would be attractive, but it's the mere fact that we are on a mountain that makes him look like such a massive tool.  The girl is in a fit and flair mermaid skirt that is made of taffeta from the waist to the knee and then chiffon from the knee to the floor. The top is separate from the bottom creating an I dream of Genie mid drift peek-a-boo affect. She is wearing galoshes for shoes. Who picked these outfits!?!  They romp around in the snow in a coltish awkward sort of way. I highly doubt either one has had much practice playing in the snow. This is intermittently spliced with  aerial mountain scenes,  shots of the man standing front while the girl wiggles on him like he's a stripper pole and the girl posing in the snow while the man prairie dogs up behind her.  There is not a word of English being spoken. I have no idea what is going on.  The look of pure glee that was on my face must have been remarkable.  I have accepted that we are now in the land of the Al Jolsen style musical where anything goes once the music starts, things don't have to make sense.  This is not the Rogers and Hammerstein school of thinking.  

At the end of the number we are brought back to the streets of this Indian city. He now proceeds to go to great lengths to get close to the girl with out talking to her.   This includes but is not limited to following her, finding out where she works, applying for a job and studying up on his global economics and computer skills. I believe this is called stalking and surely in the US he would have a restraining order slapped on him.  We are shown that the girl is a shrewd business woman, harsh and screechy.  But despite her being rather disagreeable, he is smitten.  And during this sequence we see him at home with his father who is bewildered by his son's new found purpose and by his love sick behavior.  Especially when his son starts hallucinating and seeing his father as the girl.  But through all this he eventually manages to get hired and placed on her team despite is clear lack of knowledge in the field. 

After he lands the job, the man gives this long and heartfelt monologue to his father. I imagine it's about finding purpose in his life and feeling like he is finally on the right track. Did I mention that he is giving this while driving a scooter with his father riding on the back peeking up over his shoulder? 

His life at work is tumultuous.  He manages to make the love of his life really dislike him and he also manages to make the entire computer system crash.  The result of this is the girl being screamed at by her superior in front of the entire devision bringing her to tears.   I guess she is not quite the frigid witch we all thought she was.  But after staying and working all night long he is able to repair the damage and everyone congratulates the girl. She begrudgingly thanks him for repairing the damage. 

We do not escaping the series of office scene with out a musical number. And it is a glorious one. There is dancing and cubicles and throwing of reports like confetti and bewildered blustering fat man.  Just so tasty. 

The story moves on and the man gets to go to Australia with the girl on a business trip. He goes shopping and shows off his new clothes to his father while Livin' La Vida Loca plays in the background.  Next we see him on the flight where he is sitting next to the girl. Things get awkward and a bit judgmental when he orders a whiskey soda (that was in English) and they fall asleep on the flight waking up nose to nose.  Because everyone sleeps like that when they're in love. 

When they arrive they begin to work with an Australian company.  All the white people seem to have a weird Indian accent despite being Australian.   To celebrate their arrival the team decides to go out to a club and they manage to convince the girl to come along. This next part is amazing, because we get to this club and all the white Australian girls are so heinous and garishly dressed that I was guffawing.  In the late 80's and early 90's there was this trend where girls would take oversized tee shirts and cut them up along the bottom and side seems to create a fringed affect. This enables you to take the shirt in at the sides and make it form fitting. It also was pretty slutty/trashy looking, especially when you would cut it so your middle showed and decorated the fringe with beads.   This is what all the white girls in the club were wearing along with daisy dukes and halter tops.  They also were not the most physically fit women and had sloppy make up and hair.  Now, every Indian woman in the movie had nothing less than exquisite hair and make up.  And I mean everyone from extras to the leading lady.  So these white woman who were so consciously and intentionally dressed in this horrifying way was just completely absurd.

  

The girl ends up deciding to drink (which is a huge deal, the entire audience was screaming and cheering) and she ends up consuming about  ten cocktails.  For someone who was so contemptuous about the consumption of alcohol she sure can put them away. So, the man is now charged with the care of her. He brings her back to her hotel room where she vomits on him and herself.  She also attempts to be promiscuous by showing off her ankles but he resists but stays with her to make sure she's alright from the safe and respectful distance of a chair. 

When she wakes in the morning, she is horrified by his presence and her behavior. She yells at him and then he yells at her. It's weird and uncomfortable. 

The man gives the presentation and it goes over amazingly.  Perhaps the girl is seeing him in a new light? She seeks him out after and finds him on the helicopter pad on top of the building.  We now head into the title number of the movie. I'm not going to give any details, but I will attach the link to the YouTube clip. That will speak for itself.

 

 

After the song, the man gives the woman a speech about how much he loves her and she does not react well. She says something about invitations and he gets mad and starts to get a little "I'm a man and you're a woman" when she yells, "because I love my job!" I have no idea of the details but we return to India where things go from bad to worse.  The man's father goes to talk to the girl after seeing how upset his son is. This does no good and after a hissy fit and some slaps thrown by the woman security is called to remove both the man and his father. 

They go home and drown their sorrows and stinging cheeks with booze.  This evokes more screaming and cheering from the audience.  And after this short comical scene between liquor, father and son we shift to the next morning where we find the father dead. Woah!  This leads to an intense funeral and series of wallowing scenes.  Eventually the man's friends come and persuade him to go away. He accepts the offer to go with his handsome friend out to the country to his parents place. As the train pulls away, we see the girl chasing down the train. The man is ignorant to her pursual of the train. Just you think she will fall behind, the friend reaches out and pulls her on board. They cling to each other and laugh. Horrified, the man is finally introduced to his best friend's fiancé, the girl!

Intermission 

I know what you are thinking. How can this be intermission, that was like four movies all in one right there.  How can there possibly be more? Why is this movie so crazy and long? I don't know, it just is. 

When the lights come up for intermission I am able to appreciate the fact that we are dead center in this large movie theater as three hundred pairs of Indian eyes turn and stare at the four white girls.  We aren't exactly subtle either. Abby and Hanna with their blonde hair, all of us with our blue and green eyes.  I was attempting to be conspicuous by hiding most of my attention grabbing red locks under my Red Sox cap. A futile attempt. When you think about it, it's actually somewhat impressive how shameless they are about staring.  I am not unfamiliar with the sensation being in the spotlight but holy Hannah is this uncomfortable. There was nowhere to look. You either looked at each other, the ceiling, or did your best turtle impression.   After fifteen minutes of this, I was ready for the movie to resume and the staring to stop. 

We left off our story with the grieving man embarking on the most uncomfortable couples weekend ever.  They journey to the friends house for what turns out to be his wedding.  Yikes! When they arrive there are many women who fuss over meeting the bride and meeting the man.  Among them is a young girl of maybe fourteen or fifteen.  She gives the man the once over and the Bollywood equivalent of bow-chicka-wow-wow plays. The audience bursts into cheers and cat calls.  Are approving of this behavior? The man is easily in his thirties. 

The  family has many cooky characters including a warm and benevolent mother, a feisty Nana, a stoic and revered father as well as many aunts and uncles. There are many events that take place leading up to the nuptials. The family goes to a carnival where a group of bad men turn up.  Their leader has freakishly white teeth and green eyes.  This is not attractive and makes him look like Satan.  He threatens the family and the man steps in between them and we now break into a crouching tiger hidden dragon fight.  The man, who couldn't get a job and was covered in poop at the beginning of the movie  is now round house kicking sending bad guys into carnival game stands and throwing people on and off of ferris wheels.  He single handedly defeats the entire gang and walks away with only a cut on his hand. The girl holds his hand while it is being bandaged and when he leave she has some of his blood on her hand.  Which by the way is obviously paint, the powder kind, and it has not been mixed with enough water to even appear to be liquid.  But, the girl, is she having a change of heart? 

We press on where the man must go shopping with all the women who are now simply fawning over him and all the children.  The women are getting things for the wedding attire.  Then for some reason there is an awkward scene with little boys needing to go to the bathroom and they're naked.  I can say I wasn't ready for that. 

Now we return to the house where Nana is dead.  She lies surrounded by family and many people unseen before this weeping around her body.  The man walks in and yells at everyone, they leave and he has a private moment with Nana.  Now, let me remind you, this is not his family.  This is his friend's family.  There seems to be an unbelievable power that you have as a leading man where you can yell at anyone regardless of the situation.  Seems rude, but I'll go with it.

 

He now delivers a monologue at Nana's deathbed where he is crying.  Again, I have no idea what's going on, but after shedding some tears it appears that Nana is back from the dead!  She flutters her eyes and smiles at the man.  The family rushes back in and now celebrates.  

There is a scene that feels similar to rehearsal dinner where the next song takes place.  This a more traditional Bollywood number where the dancing is fluid and quite graceful.  This is the best quality part of the movie, it seems the most natural. 

The affections of the teenager for the man have only grown.  She flirts with him and he is very uncomfortable and the girl becomes jealous of the teenager.  Somehow they all end up in a car together with the man and the teenager in the back seat.  She nestles in to him as they drive down a bumpy road and she even kisses him. The girl slams on the brakes of the car and the man tells the girl that he is not interested.  The teenager leaps from the car and runs away and throws herself into the river.  The man and the girl chase after her and the man jumps into the river and retrieves her.    They call her name, but she is unresponsive.  No one is administering CPR but they do slap her feet?  Eventually the teenager oozes water out of her mouth, yes I do mean ooze, and wakes up.  They bring her back to the house.

The woman now knows that she loves the man.  That night the rest of the guests arrive for the wedding and we see the man's other friend and work colleges who know that he is in love with the girl.  They lament over the situation and just as the man is ready to leave or go to bed (I'm not sure which) the girl appears.  

We now go into the most jaw dropping musical sequence of the movie.  The set is a gas station, pacific gas and everyone is dressed like they are attending a jersey shore party.  There are a lot of back up dancers and all of it is awkward. And just when you didn't think that it could get anymore ludicrous there is a shift in the music and a shift in the scenery.  We are now in the wild wild west.  All the men have chaps, jeans, cowboy hats, aviators and leather vests with no shirt on underneath.  The girl is wearing a brown leather skirt, a gold sequined corset and a gold lame bra.  They dance around, but in the back of the scene there is a guy standing in the gallows with a noose around his neck.  At one point the man  dances up to the guy, takes the noose of his neck and he dances away all happy and smiling while the man puts the noose around his neck and the trap door lets go.  The music pauses on a shot of the girl gasping. The man pops up next to her and the song continues.

After the number is over, the man leaves and we see that the father has seen the whole exchange. He visits the girl in her room and slaps her. Everyone finds out that she is in love with the man and her fiancé is furious.  We now see the man leaving and heading to the train station.  He leaves and then comes back to the wedding but then leaves again.  I really don't know what happened here, it was weird.  But on his second departure the wedding is fully on, the girl is in her bridal get up.  We go back and forth from the wedding to the man heading to the train station.  When suddenly, he passes the bad guys who jump out and stab him.  The man lays dying on the side of the road.  Some villagers find him and tell everyone at the wedding. They all look to the father and he says nothing but the man's friends plead with everyone and eventually Nana leaves, so does the fiancé and then everyone else.  The only two who are left are the father and the girl.  Words are exchanged, and next we see the man waking at the hospital.  He walks out to see the family all there and eventually he sees the girl.  They go to each other, hold hands and then it cuts to them being married.

The end 

What?