Madhur Bhandarkar’s fashion is boring, predictable and worth a miss. The director doesn’t even show shades of his Page 3 or other movies in this one. It’s just an ordinary film, with a 150% predictable storyline (assuming it had one).
Meghna (Priyanka) is a small town girl who dreams big, of becoming a super model. The film is all about how she (rather, did she ever) achieves her dreams. Shonali (Kangana) is the reigning supermodel. With a ‘kind’ support from the Sarin's (Arbaaz & Suchitra Pillay) and Alisha (Kitu Gidwani) Meghna scales new heights in the industry in no time, and her fall from grace to nothingness also happens as fast. She comes back to her parents, leaving her shattered dreams behind, who encourage her, this time, to find herself back, gain confidence and return to the industry and make it even bigger.
Priyanka Chopra has nothing to emote in the whole movie. She is the biggest disappointment. Kangana Ranaut has overacted each of her scenes. She would better take some acting lessons from someone, preferably not Arbaaz. Kitu Gidwani is the only gorgeous thing in Fashion.
The screenplay is weak, and the dialogues aren’t great. The movie stretches for 3 odd hours without any surprises or turning points. I could even predict some of the dialogues. Even before the characters say it, u know that he’s gonna say this.
Fashion has no comparison with Page 3. While the protagonist in Fashion finds that she has lost herself in the midway, pursuing her dreams, the one in Page 3 realizes herself and understands what she’s got to do towards the end. Fashion may even boast of being realistic and bringing out the behind-the-scenes from the world of modelling, but those were all things, I thought, we knew. It’s nothing new. What Page 3 gave us were chilling revelations.
Arjan Bajwa does justice to his role as the struggling model. He looks good and has got his acts right. The much talked about wardrobe-malfunction picturised on Kangana, is one high point of this film. The situation is very much justified and filmed to near perfection. All of us might remember the one-time-model-turned-beggar episode which were aired on news channels throughout, some time back. Now, here’s a sadistic filmmaker who re-enacts the whole story, in his own way, with good looking movie stars. Nobody goes to movies to see a dramatized version of reality.
All in all, fashion is a damp squib and watch it only if you find no better way to spend time. Definitely not a collector’s item. I would give it a 1.5 star rating.
