There is a price one must pay for success. And never - not even in the golden era - was this rather cliché adage truer for Lollywood than it is today. It’s been quite a while since Pakistani cinema has been “revived” - really, we’re past that stage - and of late, Pakistani cinema has seen a flood of local movies, welcomed by art and entertainment enthusiasts around the country.
2015 was a year to mark for the Pakistani film enthusiast. With movies like Moor, Shah, and Manto, contemporary Pakistani filmmakers showed the country - if not the world - that they are not there to make films simply for the sake of making films, but to make films because they have genuinely good content to show on the big screen. Then there were comic flicks like Karachi Se Lahore and Jawani Phir Nahi Ani that were notable for their original (yet hilarious) scripts and long stretches at the cinema testifying to their popularity with the masses.
This category of films arrives with a loud roll of drums, promises a lot and delivers nothing but the ordinary
And then there was Ho Mann Jahan.
Ho Mann Jahan belongs to the third category of films produced by Pakistani filmmakers. This is a category which includes the likes of Bin Roye and Dekh Magar Pyar Se. This category of films arrives with a loud roll of drums, promises a lot and delivers nothing but the ordinary. It’s like ordering a Big Mac with large fries and having a bun kebab delivered at your doorstep. And this comes from a usually very lenient and accommodating critic. So what is it about Ho Mann Jahan that makes it so... unimpressive?
Let’s start with the storyline. Ho Mann Jahan - produced, directed and written by Asim Raza - is the story of three friends (*Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara alert*), Arhan (Sheheryar Munawar), Nadir (Adeel Hussain) and Manizeh (Mahira Khan), all of whom study at one of the most prestigious business schools in the country, IBA. However, despite getting to the final semester of his degree, Arhan is a horrible student. He is also the poor one. And the one who is on bad terms with his father. Oh, and his mother is dead.
Behind the scenes during the shooting
Nadir and Manizeh, on the other hand, are brilliant students and they are in a romantic relationship. Nadir is the son of rich parents (one of whom is Bushra Ansari) and Manizeh is the daughter of an artist mother, and a musician-turned-mullah father. Her parents separated after her father turned into a religious musician, who chose to chant naats instead of singing pop songs.
All three, despite the differences in their backgrounds, have one thing in common: their love for music.
The three best friends form a band, but Nadir’s overbearing parents demand of him to pick one of the two “disagreeable” things in his life: music or Manizeh. He picks Manizeh and tells his friends that he wants to give up music and take care of the family business instead. Annoyed at first, Manizeh and Arhan continue with business as usual, without Nadir.
Mahira Khan as 'Manizeh'
The days of giving a Pakistani movie grace marks because it's viewable are now numbered
On the other hand, Nadir grows increasingly jealous of Manizeh and Arhan’s success (they get a call from Coke Studio) and their growing bond (Arhan develops feelings for Manizeh after being told their singing chemistry is great). *Dil To Pagal Hai alert*.
Things turn sour as Manizeh finds out Nadir’s parents don’t really like her and want her to give up music, and Nadir ends up heartbroken and in the hospital with a nervous breakdown. However, since all had to end well in this one, all wounds are finally healed. Manizeh and Nadir patch up and get ready to get married, Arhan - who had left home after his father yelled at him for failing - also patches up with his father, and Nadir’s parents realise what a horrible mistake it was to push their son around for twenty-plus years. Asim Raza is such an optimist, he even made Manizeh reach out to her estranged father - whom she had hated all her life - and ask him to co-exist with herself and her mother despite the differences in their lifestyles.
All’s well that ends well - so says William Shakespeare, not I.
The movie - which lasted for 2 hours and 50 minutes - seemed to drag on forever. It was like watching ten episodes of a standard Pakistani drama patched together. The story was not remotely unique: coming-of-age, overbearing parents, confused youths and love triangles, we have seen it all before. The only thing the filmmakers could have cashed in on was the characters’ love for music, and that was the only thing they chose to side-line. This depicted the filmmakers’ lack of commitment towards music and, hence, towards the movie’s own storyline and one of its most key elements. There are so many music-centric movies that the filmmakers could have looked up to for inspiration, such as Damien Chazelle’s recent, Whiplash, or even the Bollywood musical drama, Sur, that managed to weave music and other elements of the film together masterfully.
The stars in 'Ho Mann Jahan'
For the positives: all the main characters of the film were well acted out, with all three of the leads filling up their roles nicely. The filmmakers evidently did not invest much time and effort in styling, which is forgivable since the film was mostly set in a casual setting. Sonya Jahan’s act as Sabina is particularly worthy of praise, as Jahan managed to bring out the strength, wisdom and independence of Sabina with near-perfection. We might - ideally - be seeing more of her on the big screen after this performance.
The second positive to take away from the film was the dialogue’s occasional brilliance. The scriptwriter, Yasir Hussain, deserves due praise for coming up with a lively script, yet again, which could have carried the film through - like Yasir’s previous scriptwriting effort, Karachi Se Lahore - had it not been too occupied with drama for the script to take the centre stage.
To sum up: Pakistani filmmakers desperately need to pull their socks up and get more serious about dishing out genuinely good films. With the kind of quality competition lining up beside them, critics and audiences alike would be expecting a lot more from filmmakers than revamped versions of ‘90s Bollywood films or compact versions of local dramas. The days of giving a Pakistani movie grace marks because “at least it’s a viewable Pakistani movie with presentable actors” are now strictly numbered.
