Papa is always right. If anyone needs a lesson in the values of parental obedience, just look at Hrithik Roshan. After seven disastrous runs at the turnstiles, Sonny Boy has finally managed to reach the finishing post. Last week, he delivered his first confirmed hit after that wondrous debut film aho Na Pyar Hai. All thanks to some spirited, dedicated guidance from filmmaker dad Rakesh Roshan.
Koi Mil Gaya registered an impressive opening weekend all over India. According to a film trade site, ibosnetwork.com, the net gross exceeded Rs 60 lakh in the first three days in Mumbai city alone—almost twice the Rs 38 lakh generated by Kaho Na Pyar Hai in its entire first week. According to Film Information, the collections would be about 95-96 per cent in the first week in Bombay and Delhi and the film seems on course to make about Rs 6-6.5 crore for its Mumbai distributor alone. The Rs 25 crore film would rake in Rs 10-11 crore for producer Rakesh Roshan who sold it at Rs 2.5-2.75 per major territory. And despite the fact that collections may dip after the holiday-filled week, the industry is buoyant. "Nothing can go wrong with it. Let's see how right it goes," says Film Information's Komal Nahata. Interestingly, the film hasn't quite clicked in a big way with the nris—it grossed a mere $274,851 from 55 screens in the opening weekend.
But even if you quibble on the figures, KMG has conclusively rescued Hrithik from being a total write-off. And the star's obviously excited. "My character of the child-man has struck a deep chord. The response is beyond anything my dad and I had hoped for," says Hrithik. Even those who didn't like the film have good things to say, and a not-so-generous industry is giving him a rousing reception. "Every actor has his ups and downs. Hrithik is not a one-film-wonder which is everyone's favourite tag for him," says filmmaker Tanuja Chandra. "The media just thinks that if a few films don't work, the actor is gone," says Arjun Sablok who directed him in the flop Na Tum Jaano Na Hum. So can Hrithik now blame the fourth estate for the past misfortunes? "It's like your marksheet—if you've failed, how can we say that you've passed and now that you are doing well, how can we say you're not?" asks Vinod Mirani of Box Office.
So what's worked now? Numerology, perhaps. Is it a three-fingered hand of an alien that's proven lucky for the six-fingered Hrithik? KMG seems to have got it right at every step. The promos created enough curiosity to get the viewers in, the music had us tapping our feet, the pre-release hype and sustained media attention kept the film in the news. And most baffling of all, the media goodwill has never been so pronounced. There's never been such a unanimous darling of the critics in recent times, not even a far superior Lagaan or Dil Chahta Hai.
In the end, KMG is just a very cunningly crafted and astutely packaged film. It has a novelty value, enough pretensions of being "different", pitching itself as the first Indian sci-fi. But KMG never strays very far from the mainstream. "It's a typical Indian film presented in a modern way," says Mirani. "All the commercial parameters, the gags and gimmicks are there," points out Nahata. So it moves from Canada to Nainital to Australia to the Film City in a blink of the eye and all of these locations together pass off for a pseudo Kasauli. In cold Kasauli, Preity Zinta chills in micro-minis and Sansui, Nescafe and Hero Honda hog frame-after-frame even as the alien, Jadoo, merrily relishes a Coke. A 21st century designer Hindi film!
Alright, there's a spaceship, some computers, a not-so-normal hero (a grown up with the mind of a child) and the relationship between the hero and the heroine borders more on friendship than love.But it's ultimately a story about "Ma ki Mamta" which can help conquer any adversity. And a Lagaan-style basketball match in which children win over the adults. So it's packing in the kids and the ladies—a reason why the entire family has to follow as well.
KMG could well be Bollywood's first attempt at a mega-budget kiddy film, perhaps, after Mr India. "The kids are going ballistic. It's my chance to connect with my young fans," says Hrithik. And even though the magic and sheer fun and exuberance of the Anil Kapoor-Sridevi starrer are going amiss, what might be working is the emotional appeal. It's this tug that makes the alien seem more like a creature from Indian mythology, a humble, dependable Hanuman than an endearing ET. Even the signal with which the Indians communicate with the aliens is Aum (a broad hint at Om), "a religious word which encompasses all vibrations of the world".
The most celebrated aspect of the film, however, has been the change in Hrithik's persona. "The role required fine-tuning. If it was too intense, it'd look wrong. It was like walking on the razor's edge. He couldn't exaggerate it," says papa Roshan. Even when Hrithik's transformed into a "normal" self, it's still not quite fully the hunky Hrithik we've known. He carries the residues of "abnormality" even when he starts dancing with his characteristic plastic efficiency. He does beat up the bad guys, but with that awkward gait intact. Such a change in image was imminent and long overdue. "Hrithik had started looking like his own duplicate," says Mirani. So what's he doing next? Where does he go from here? To Ladakh for 45 days to shoot for Farhan Akhtar's war movie Lakshya, the only film in his kitty. But he's not worried. For now he has Jadoo by his side.
Namrata Joshi with Lata Khubchandani and Subhash K. Jha
