Luck by Chance- a Review

When I first heard about Luck by Chance in the making, I already had a positive expectation of the film due to the names associated with them. Farhan Akhtar seems to be knowing very well what he is doing nowadays, and it would be interesting to see how Zoya, his younger sister fares as a director.

To begin with, I did not find the storyline much novel from the many films about the movie industry and stardom which I have seen before. Instead, it was a totally predictable film- almost nothing caught be by much surprise, except the final reels of the film, which culminated to a highly sensible ending. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill happy ending but the way Zoya wrote the climax has to be applauded immensely as it made the whole experience of watching this film something to cherish.

The first and final scene of this film reveals that this film is all about the development of one character- Konkona Sen Sharma's Sona Mishra. The film starts with her journey to filmdom, the wandering wannabe actor who entered her life, charmed her, and thanks to her hand, managed to make his success, and later strayed away with the usual addictions stardom provides. But amidst all this, there is Sona, finding a reason for optimism all the time, and how she finally finds happiness by just doing what she loves to do everyday and not concerning herself with the desperate chase for stardom.

Farhan and Konkona were both splendid to say the least, and Farhan should be applauded for taking up a grey role and not a typical hunk role and playing it to perfection. His is a flawed, human character in every way possible. Konkona meanwhile is someone that had always proved her acting credentials right, and she could proudly tally in Luck by Chance into her list of wonderful performances.Among others, Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia simply own their roles, while Isha Sharvani does an adequate job. However, the only flaw in terms of characterization seems to be Juhi Chawla's Minty- a character which does not have any kind of substance. Or it could be that her character is a metaphorical parody, but that parody definitely missed me by.

Javed Akhtar's dialogues are a great backbone to the film, but certainly Zoya pulls off a more than convincing directorial debut with LBC. Though she could obviously improve few more aspects of her film-making, she did a commendable job for a newcomer, and just like her brother, had the conviction to leave stereotypes and do a different film as her very first (Farhan did Dil Chahta Hai).

All in all, LBC is a mellow, meaningful drama about stardom, success, failures, and doing what you love to do. A good film laced with an important message which is not preached but instead slowly treated to the audience- definitely worth one (or two) views at least.

Rating: 8/10