‘Blue Mountains’ movie review: Out and out vague!

Directed By: Suman Ganguli
Produced By: Raujesh Kumar Jain
Cast: Ranvir Shorey, Gracy Singh, Rajpal Yadav, Yatharth Ratnum
Duration: 2 hours
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 0.5/5

You don’t understand a film for two reasons. Either you’re not intellectual enough to understand it, or there’s nothing to understand. As I sat through ‘Blue Mountains’, I had a brew of weird emotions inside me. Barring Govinda’s ‘Aa Gaya Hero’, this one, in a long time, surpassed all preconditions of being a bad film. I am out of my usual sarcasm right now. In fact, I am quite amazed that an entire film can revolve around thoroughly damaging perspectives.

Som Sharma (Yatharth Ratnum), hailing from a small town in Himachal Pradesh, accidentally goes to audition for a singing reality show and is shortlisted. Som’s mother Vaani Sharma (Gracy Singh) used to be a famous singer once but gave up her career as per her husband Om’s (Ranvir Shorey) saying. As she sees her son is nearing the dream she herself could not fulfill, she is all excited. Though, the father is against his son pursuing a career in singing. What begins next is a torturous episode of ‘grooming’. The age demands a child to be not just a singer or a dancer but an all-rounder. So, play with how he stands, how he talks, how he moves, how he smiles. Play with the person that he is and change him into a package. But the sad part is, even after all this, Som fails to win and returns home, depressed and devastated.

We are okay with intelligent films, and we are okay with no-brainers as well. But pretentious efforts of making a no-brainer look like art-house cinema will get on anyone’s nerves. What stuns me is, the film glorifies everything that is wrong with the reality show culture. First, there’s a woman who gave up on her passion because her man asked her to; and till the latter stage of her life, she keeps on justifying it. Second, she has a son who is blessed with talents and thus she puts her own unfulfilled dreams on the child’s shoulder. Fair? No, not at all. And then? You discourage a  child to be himself, you pinpoint that he is not perfect. You kill his originality and try to transform him into an all-rounder, which no human being is.

While we keep discussing how the reality shows often put children of tender age under extreme psychological pressure by often setting unreal goals, there are films like ‘Blue Mountain’ that not only make the struggle look like a cakewalk but also mislead a child’s orientation. For a teenager who aspires to be an artiste, performance becomes secondary and glittery show-offs become the primary agenda. You think you’re being ‘cool’ and keeping up with the 21st century? Hell no!

What’s worse? Thousands of children are left with failure whereas only a handful reach the top. We set dreams for them, but when it’s time to assimilate the failure, the tender hearts have to do it themselves. How is it even justified? The filmmaker thought he was opposing the culture. Instead, he ended up making a pseudo-intellectual film.

I wish performances were a saviour. Ranvir Shorey probably has a dearth of work, thus he ended up doing this film. Gracy Singh killed every bit of her ‘Lagaan’ charm. She neither has a pleasing presence on screen, nor does she act well. Rajpal Yadav is the only person who acts, though briefly. The child actors are bad, really bad.

Yatharth Ratnum himself is a reality show winner and is a playback singer in making. If ‘Blue Mountain’ is anywhere similar to his own journey, I am sorry for him. Rather, I am sorry for all the children who go through this.

The only thing that stops me from marking it a zero is, it acknowledges how reality shows often result in putting the non-winners into trauma. Rest, it is pure junk!