Director Anurag Basu seems to have an obsession with heights. In Murder, Gangster and Life In A Metro, characters are seen hanging down or just sitting on ledges of skyscrapers. In Life In A Metro, he even gets his rock band to climb atop a building and strum guitars. And when it isn’t guitars, it’s Irrfan and Konkona getting on a rooftop to scream their lungs out. It’s meant to be therapeutic, and we’ll take Anurag Basu’s word for it.
Metro falters only in parts. Some of the narrative’s punctuation marks are overemphasised. And the spiral of human relationships often seems to replicate Mike Nichols’ Closer. And yes, Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy The Apartment serves as a direct reference point for the Kay Kay-Kangana-Sharman triangle.
But make no mistake, this is a highly original film with a voice that seems to reverberate across a limitless canvas of feelings of people in a concrete jungle. You know you are being sucked into the lives of characters who are largely losers in the garb of white-collar dreamers, looking for love and warmth in a cold, heartless city.
After Gangster, Anurag Basu has got another winner in Metro, a subtle, sly look at a bunch of characters locked in the throes of infidelity. Basu harnesses his narrative into a fiesta of reined-in feelings, all indicating the growth of a city that cares little about one’s sensitivities.
He has an incredible eye for performances. Every actor is nearly flawless in the chaos of corroded commitments in the city. Always witty, Metro moves through a laconic labyrinth of laughter and some stifled sobs.
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Sanjeev Dutta’s dialogues are indicative of the characters’ inner world. They slice right into the characters’ hearts and give us an insight into the machinations of people so busy realising their dreams that they even forget to sleep.
On the negative side, Life In A Metro fails to connect us with the characters beyond their love life. If they have a life beyond their heart, we don’t see it. The film should be seen as a mellow, melancholic and sharp look at love and sex in the city. The characters move in and out of some skilfully written scenes.
Despite a frail chemistry with Shiney Ahuja, Shilpa Shetty gives a nuanced performance. Bobby Singh’s camera captures Shilpa in agonised silhouettes. Kay Kay, as her insensitive husband, has a thankless role that he performs with rare understanding.
While Sharman and Konkona are surprisingly chemistry-less in their screen relationships, Irrfan and Konkona come across as the warmest couple in this jigsaw of life. Watch them in the seashore sequence and savour their outstanding emotive faculties. Metro is manoeuvred forward by a melee of delicious ideas… like composer Pritam and his rock band appearing as narrators to sing their songs. The rain motif pelts down on the plot, creating pockets of pain, desire and longing. But the film could have done with better editing. Akiv Ali cuts the material brutally… but not deep enough.
Anurag once told it was impossible to make a sequel to Life… In A Metro. “When we made the film, the concept and the treatment were novel. But now so many films have been made on the same theme. Besides, I’ve many new subjects for films. Why return to what I’ve already done? I started on television. I never left the medium. We’re now producing a serial loosely based on Life… In A Metro. We’ve tentatively titled it ‘Dil Khudgarz Hai’.”
Now, of course, Basu has changed his life. The sequel to Life In A Metro is on its way. But does anyone care about these characters?
