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By Sameer Wadekar, Bollywood Trade News Network
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The best thing about having a ghost girlfriend is that no one can steal her from you, or even flirt with her. Who would dare to? The first thing is that no one would be able to see her, and even if he does who would dare to? Yes but that guy would have a big problem at the same time. He would have a hard time convincing his parents and further more in obtaining a marriage certificate.
Now why I am saying all this? Well here’s a movie called I SEE YOU. The hero of the film Raj (Arjun Rampal) has a similar problem. Well he falls in love with a girl Shivani (newcomer Vipasha) who is actually a spirit. She is actually not dead but lying in coma. Raj, who is a host for a television show in London is first reluctant to believe it but later on he makes a deal with that girl to send her spirit back into her body so that she could get back to life.
Hold on there, got a question here. Aren’t you supposed to get spooked when you see a ghost, even if it’s a lady and that too a beautiful one. Say tomorrow I see a Marilyn Monroe’s spirit flashing up I would be spooked at first, scared perhaps, even if her skirt’s flying off, she would make terrify me at that moment. That’s what ghosts do. Ok, in the movie Arjun Rampal is astonished on watching the lady ghost but he displays it with such placid expressions that it all seems too funny so to speak.
Well the story marches on. Shivani’s body lies in the hospital and she had met with an accident. But that’s half-truth. The truth is that someone was trying to kill her and the story then takes a suspense turn. Now who does it and of course that guy will sure to try to finish off Shivani again who is in a coma. Now it’s Raj’s job to help Shivani out and retrieve her spirit back into her comatose body. And in the process he fells in love with Shivani, or her spirit, for that matter. And helping him in the task is Raj’s best pal Akshay (Chunkey Pandey) who has been assigned to provide comic relief.
So you might say it’s an interesting story line. Yes it is. In fact ghost stories usually makes for interesting stuff. Because by default any ghost story first arouses our curiosity. It tries to touch the fear that lurks in our minds and in a way excites us into the realm of mystery. But at the same time any horror story would dangle on the verge of being bizarre, sometimes even absurd and that’s where the writer’s skill comes into play. He has to cleverly hide the ridiculous edges of the story and make the reader believe all that he is saying. The way Stephen King does. And if it’s to be made into a film then it’s the director’s job to execute the story in a remarkably shrewd fashion to invade the viewer’s minds.
Didn’t this idea work in that Hollywood classic GHOST where Demi Moore is being pursued by her dead husband’s (Patrick Swayze) ghost. Another very innovative movie DRAGONFLY revolved around a similar concept. In Bollywood there’s the legendary film MADHUMATI (back in the 50’s) that had a very resembling plot idea. These films worked because the director was able to maintain the suspense level in that film to its optimum. They kept the audience’s guessing and the result was simply impressive.
I SEE YOU fails to deliver in these aspects. The director is Vivek Agrawal and the screenplay is by Suresh Nair. They have made the proceedings so convenient, so predictable. The whole sequence flow and character development is amateurish. The movie does provide some interesting and funny moments but that’s it. The background music is good by Vishal Shekhar and the cinematography a little low. It falls short of creating that strange world for the viewers that a ghost story implies to offer. This is very important because a ghost story intends to transcend the audience in to a world, which could be quite outlandish.
The above said movies worked because they had clever screenplay and smart execution at its core. And with a strong script one can make a ridiculous idea fascinating and it can work definitely. What one needs is a strong script because after all script is the king!