From Meerut to Mars: Why Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero is a challenge

For a huge Shah Rukh Khan fan, who was swept away by Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Pardes, Chak De, Main Hoon Na, Dil Se…, Aanand L Rai’s Zero is a challenge.

A challenge to look for that elusive silver lining that just about peeks through the cloud of confusion in the first half and then disappears forever despite a dozen sizzling cameos. It’s a challenge to string together disparate elements and make sense of them.

As the Rs 200-crore film completes a week, here’s a look at some sequences that were a bit too over the top (Spoiler alert):

 

* Why on earth would Aafiya Yousafzai, a top space scientist settled in the US and spearheading an important mission, have her profile enlisted at a marriage bureau working out of a shady office in a small town? Think hard.

* Agreed, movies are meant to be a bit over the top but how does 38-year-old Bauua, a rustic Class 10 pass, glide in and out of schools, five star hotels, filmy parties without an eyebrow being raised. He berates Aafiya at a high-profile press conference, throwing her a challenge and forcing her to crawl on all fours to pick up a pen. He almost drifts into NSAR (equivalent of NASA) and before we even realize, he’s on Mars.

* Aafiya Yousafzai, played by Anushka Sharma, after the last minute realization on ‘shaadi ka mandap’ and after being prodded by the soon-to-be-dumped groom, played by Madhavan, decides to meet Bauua, SRK, before he takes off for Mars. And she covers the distance, which going by the movie sequence is not short by any means, on a mechanized wheelchair. One may argue that the scene is set in the US and there is not a pothole in sight, no air pollution but whatever happened to cars? If nothing else, she would have reached faster and spent more time talking to Bauua.

* A die-hard fan tailing a top actress’s car on Merrut-Delhi highway, accepted. But that actress asking the driver to stop in the middle of the night and getting off only to kiss a street-smart Bauua, difficult to accept. However, heartbroken she might have been. The makers definitely need to do the Meerut-Delhi trip, in the dead of night.

Go ahead and watch the movie, if only to get the answers.

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