The story is about friendship, because Nisha Adhikari and her supposedly best friend give a five minute lecture on friendship in the first few minutes of the film and on a more serious note because the three central characters are best friends.[break]
Sanjh (Barun SJB Rana), Sakshyam (Dillip Raymajhi) and Jasmine (Namrata Shrestha) are based in Malaysia. They have a good life with time and money to spend and hang around the beach. They love each other and, in fact, they believe the three of them are ‘made for each other’.
Tension arises when Jasmine reads Sanjh’s diary and learns of his feelings for her and shares that she feels the same. Now at the same point we learn that our otherwise flamboyant and promiscuous Sakshyam is in love with Jasmine too.
Directed by Suresh Darpan Pokharel, ‘Miss U’ has nothing new to offer whether it is in the story or in the treatment of the film. One scene after another you are left reminded of some Hindi, English or Korean films.
The standing under the umbrella in the rain, the heroin’s birthday celebrations where the heroes contend in the, who gets the first share of the cake, the drunken heroine and the savior hero at a pub, ‘Miss U’ is like a collection of these with even the climax having nothing new.
There are moments when the audience can pin point the shots being lifted. For instance, the drunken beach walk reminding of Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee’s song from ‘Hum Tum,’ a bottle and three friends drinking at the sea shore from ‘Dostana’, the two friends meeting at the hospital like in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’.
A certain shot where a doctor praises the bond between these three friends, supposed to be one of the tensest scenes got the spectators laughing out loud.
We could always blame the strange English accent the doctor uses for the ridicule made by the viewers but its sad how throughout the film the audiences never really connect to the characters, let alone their emotions.
The fault lies in the screenplay which is dealt in a surficial manner. The relationship between the three best friends is never really established, its just there.
The love that blooms amongst them is also left unexplored, Sakshyam’s background gets zero attention, they are said to be students in Malaysia and that’s all we know about them.
Instead of building up on such essentials in the dark the makers chose to work on unnecessary scenes. One such scene is when the friends are estranged and each of them try their charm in hitch hiking only to be looted, another scene we’ve witnessed multiple times.
We blame the story and screenplay of Suraj Subba ‘Nalbo’ because acting wise Namrata does an okay job, Dilip Rayamajhi is just fine and the first timer Barun is definitely not bad.
Cinematography of the film looks good. Dhiraj Jung Shah and Raju Bikram Thapa manage to catch some beautiful scenes.
The actors look good too, the effort on clothes and make up is apparent. Namrata is pretty in whatever she wears, Barun too is a good looker but Dilip, however, could have done without the multicolored tees and the cigarette scenes that come alongside a warning displayed on the screen which just looks awkward.
Also, the dialogues could have been better. ‘I want grandchildren soon’ or ‘I dreamt of my soon to be daughter in law’ is all Sanjh’s mom has to say.
Editing wise too the film could have been so much crispier. There are times the film can get severely nerve wrecking and it’s more than obvious when you have to watch the same old drama and that too in an elongated version.
Its one cliché of a movie and for those who don’t watch it, you’ve not missed anything!
Related story
Nothing matters
