Haute Review: Fan

We shouldn’t be discussing whether ‘Fan’ was a good movie or not. What we should really be discussing is how SRK finally knows what the rest of go through when we dream of the day we’ll finally meet him. There is a powerful scene in the middle of the movie, where Gaurav Chandna (the fan) helplessly plops against a wall, crying his eyes out, and I couldn’t help but wonder how SRK was able to pull that off. You can see the heartbroken Gaurav and how his pain is eating away at him, which leads to either two conclusions:

a) SRK has really truly shown his acting mettle, being able to get outside his body and mind truly, to be able to show a character that is literally at the other end of who SRK is as a person, or

b) Can we describe this as absolute vanity? Because in this particular scene, Gaurav is absolutely broken because he did not win the love and approval of the man he looks up to, (which is SRK himself in real life) So basically, it was the fake SRK crying for the real SRK. If that is not self love, then I don’t know what is.

Good film or bad, people are still crazy about him

We don’t dislike SRK for this though. Hell, I love him enough to do what Gaurav does in the movie to get Aryan Khanna’s (the star) attention. But even then, I can’t claim that I loved this film. As much as my heart yearns to one day see him in flesh, what I saw on the screen was far from any real fan’s vision. What makes me so sad is that this film had so much potential.

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE SRK FROM ANY ANGLE?

Fan starts off nicely because SRK has done a terrific job with Gaurav. Not once do we feel that it’s actually SRK himself. AMAZING transformation. Also, the film has probably topped many other Indian films in terms of cinematography and direction. It’s just the writers who didn’t do their job properly, and as usual, ‘bollywood-ized the whole thing. There were James Bond level fight scenes and unrealistic plot twists. The movie had zero songs, which was something new. At the end, you basically end up not feeling any sympathy for either of the two characters. I wasn’t rooting for either of them, it didn’t bother me to see either of them failing. Second half onwards, I was simply enjoying the technical aspects of the film.

While the film’s plot really was disappointing, you can’t take away the fact that Fan has really changed the game for Bollywood in terms of technical prowess. Keep doing what you do SRK. We’ll always be your fan, though perhaps not in the Gaurav sense of the word.