Review: The Dirty Picture

The Dirty Picture

Stars: Vidya Balan, Emraan Hashmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Tusshar

Directed by: Milan Luthria

Released: December 2, 2011

Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. One of the main messages of this film is surely what it is. Some would say that this film was overhyped, that it was nothing groundbreaking and that Vidya Balan's performance was nothing special. Well, I would like to kindly disagree with them.

Reshma (Balan), a poor girl in India runs away from home the night before her wedding, forever damaging her relationship with her mother. She has big dreams to be in pictures and she falls into some luck. A dance director pulls her into a song with a whip and she uses it well. This is her big break into films and suddenly everyone wants to get a piece of Silk, as Reshma is now known. The actor Surya (Shah), which she has been in love with for years, gives her the time of day after some sexy convincing from Silk. Being in his movies only boosts her further into stardom. This, however, makes him a little upset since his thunder is being stolen away.

In the meantime, we run into Abraham (Hashmi) every once in a while who has a real chip on his shoulder and hates Silk. I feel like we never really got to understand why he hated her, though, and that bothered me. He hated her because she was vulgar? So what? That's no reason to hate someone. There seemed to be more there that was never really addressed or explained. As with many actresses, Silk hit her prime... and started to fall. She could no longer get roles as easily as she could before and this lead her to financial and emotional problems which led to her ultimate and final downfall.

There are things about this film that make me mad - but they're supposed to, I believe. For starters, The Dirty Picture does good at pointing out a serious flaw in people, which can easily be explained in this quote from Silk, "You make films about sex, you sell them, you watch them, you show them, you even present them with awards, but you're scared to aknowledge them." That's something I've noticed in my time of being a fan of Bollywood. It's alright for men to watch a woman dance around half naked but she is forever scarred and scorned for life. Then, those same men want to act as though they have done nothing wrong, like they are as pure and chaste as the day they were born. 

From the reviews I've read, it makes me laugh because so many people talk about how vulgar this film was. Did they not see the previews? The trailers? The title? It's The Dirty Picture, what do you expect? Of course this might be my American showing here, but nothing in this film shocked me that much. However I do understand that as far as Bollywood and Indian standards go, this was vulgar and dirty. Still, don't be surprised  by it and act like you had no idea what this film was going to be about.

Vidya deserved every single accolade and praise that she got from this film. Her acting was nothing short of spectacular. She became Silk. Watching her in Parineeta, No One Killed Jessica and now The Dirty Picture proves just how dedicated and versatile she is. She is one of the hardest working actresses today and I hope she continues to produce these fantastic films. And extra points to her for the curvy body she was sporting in the film. Her hips, thighs and larger stomach were all adorable to me and it was nice to see that she wasn't afraid to go there as well. Emraan was wood throughout his performance but that might be because he didn't really have much of one. Shah was fantastic and made me cringe, but for all the right reasons. Tusshar was cute, I thought. It was my first film with him and liked him well enough. The music is of course great. Ooh La La will forever be one of my favorite songs and there's no changing that.

The only reason I took a point off from it being perfect was because the second half dragged so much. Other than that, it was perfect to me, honestly. I enjoyed it so much and it lived up to its hype, me thinks. I will watch it again someday, for sure. 

Rating: 9/10