Happy Birthday

I have always been a fan of short movies or what the academy terms as “Live Action Short”. And my love for them has only grown over the years. It is incredible what can be told through just simple frames which capture not just some deft screenplay but also so much in images that the viewer gets an extremely solid understanding of what is trying to be told. I experienced the same feeling during my visit down under where I saw a few short films which were absolutely mind blowing to say the least.

Sadly, the genre has some time to go in India. And the reason is not a lack of talent at all I must say. I promised a friend that I would watch his movie and put it up on my blog – I wonder why he believed that it would help – but a promise is a promise. So Tatha, here is my review of your first movie as an actor and my 2nd short film review on my blog.

Happy Birthday is the story of Shruti (Bidita Biswas) who is a twenty something young girl from Kolkata. She has been swept of her feet, albeit unconvincingly, a few years back by Vedant (Sumit Banerjee). A drama that was acted out in the middle of a by lane somewhere in the deep dark recesses of the City of Joy. Shruti is surprised at the middle of the road proposal but accepts it and a relationship begins. Like most relationships, this one also goes through the initial period of euphoria and a lot of excitement.

Vedant manages to surprise Shruti quite often, an aspect that goes really well with most women I am told. Most importantly, he makes Shruti feel special on her birthday. He does so convincingly the first time and then every subsequent time drops the excitement factor. First by coming late and then eventually by not even wishing her – now haven’t we heard this before .

This year on her birthday, he hasn’t even called her up – leave alone meeting her. Obviously Shruti is disappointed to no end. But is surprised at someone singing Happy Birthday to you suddenly in the still of the night. Shruti’s dead body is found the next morning.

Director Sumit Banerjee, also plays the role of Vedant, doesn’t leave too much to be guessed about his amateur status. Not just through a directorial attempt that can be described as very basic, but also because of his acceptance of very average performances all across. The only person who seems to have done a reasonable job is Bidita Biswas who plays the role of Shruti reasonably well.

None of the other performances appear natural at all. The screenplay is again below par and the use of music (including Metallica’s Sad But True) is good in patches. For an amateur attempt, Happy Birthday is not bad. One can easily say that there is a long way to go. But a lot of hard work would be required from the crew to take this to the next level. 4 on 10 and lots of best wishes to the team.

Watch the movie on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-DtXNmgaDg