A real morning show is more entertaining than ‘Jeewan Hathi’

Meenu and Farjad’s second outing is classic example of when sum of the parts does not equal the whole

KARACHI: Whether you walk out of the cinema feeling more relieved or you walkout more distressed, one way or the other, the director has succeeded in playing with your head. I’ve had both, while walking out of Jawani Phir Nahin Ani and Karachi Se Lahore respectively. Last night however, I had the experience of a third kind. As much as my explanation might sound like an M Night Shymlan film, what unraveled was least like that. I walked out of the cinema feeling exactly the same as I did when entering it. Not even an impulse of a difference was felt as an infinite collection of cells in my body tried to suspend their disbelief, but unfortunately, blood kept flowing as Ghalib would’ve never wanted it to. Nothing oozed out of my eyes apart from forced anticipation, which despite being self-induced was fed with nothing but popcorn.

Meenu and Farjad’s second outing as feature film-makers is a shocking disappointment. It makes me wonder either Zinda Bhaag was a result of alien invasion or Jeewan Hathi, because the film borrows nothing significant from its glorious predecessor, apart from a very theatrical treatment.

Made under the banner of Zee TV Unity project, Jeewan Hathi centralises itself on our media’s obsession with ratings and the audience’s fascination with the idiot box. Hina Dilpazir, whose morning show ratings are dwindling has been replaced with a more attractive girl, whom the owner Tabani is also married to. With no other options, she accepts the offer to host a new show surrounding married couples titled Jeewan Saathi. Along with producer ATM ( Saife Hasan) and director played by Nazarul Hasan, she starts auditioning possible participants. An elite couple that met on a beach party and a poverty-stricken couple that met on a mamu’s chehlum are finalised for the competition and so begins a race against ratings, time and drama.

Race against drama is the key here for the film fails to provide any crescendos despite surrounding a very dramatic premise. Perhaps the entire film needed to be as loud and exaggerated as the character of Dilpazir itself. She was on top of her game throughout and has outdone her previous TV accomplishments like Quddusi Sahab Ki Bewah with one big screen performance. She is indeed the queen of melodrama and has been tactfully utilised by the director-duo. Apart from that, there’s barely anything that saves Jeewan Haathi from being a complete disaster and that brings us to the elephant in the room, the script itself. Fasih Bari Khan, an accomplished TV writer behind successful ventures like Burns Road ki Nilofer and Quddusi Sahab Ki Bewah may have thrown funny one-liners here and there, but the characters turn out to be more pressing than whatever remained of the plot. It all seemed like a big situation and not a story with the sound design and editing only making things more confusing.

The audio levels of the dialogues and the score were so mismatched that they could have even done without it or maybe just added a laughter track. People actually wanted to know when to laugh and what to laugh at and they eventually ran out of options.

Speaking strictly in terms of film form, Jeewan Hathi is a classic example of when the sum of the parts does not equal its whole. Despite great individual performances by Hasan, Fawad Khan and even Kiran Tabeer, the film as a whole was a waste of time. The only thing that works in its favour is that Jeewan Hathi is short but that is not going to save cinemas from their ongoing crises.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2016.

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