Anurag Basu's Metro Magic review

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A very reassuring film for Bollywood, thats beautiful, entertaining and modestly real. Anurag Basu's Life in a Metro is certainly a contemporary masterpiece considering the kind of cinema industry has offered during the past few weeks.

Metro tells stories of characters we meet in our everyday lives.It showcases their dillemas which are similar to the ones we face quite often in a city like Mumbai. A boss (Kay Kay Menon) who's sleeping with his subordinate. <!--more-->A married couple (Menon and Shilpa) , deserted by love and respect for each other.A desperate bachelor in fourties (Irfan Khan) , looking for a wife and sex and a lonely career woman (Konkana) , who is unable to find the right match. A fastracer BPO employee( Sharman Joshi) , who wants to make it big and is ready to use people and offers himself to get used. A struggling actor ( Shiney Ahuja) waiting for the big break and love. And a career woman who knowingly falls into an exploitative relationship (Kangana). And old lovers who get a second chance to live a life together (Dharmendra and Nafisa).

All these stories are beautifully interwoven. It's a web of people whose lives are closely knit and something in someone's life affects others. This is why we don't get stranded into multiple storylines without a clue.

A wonderful script written to the the visuals. A superb montage in the begining establishing the characters and the web of relationship.

Bobby Singh's cinematography deserves kudos, he not only gives us great pictures but also successfully conveys a sense of the city, that's racing fast ahead of human bondings.

The stories remain engaging and full of humour except for the oldies, Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali. Their story appears slightly crossing the line of controlled emotions and believability, that Anurag Basu assures us right in the begining. Its not that Indian audience is not ready for love between oldies but the teenage-ish expression that their love takes gets difficult to digest sometimes.

Hats off the the superb and refined humor. It's very very rare these days. Clean and real funny conversations and instances, taken from our everyday lives. Irfan is superb and Konkana is a perfect match for him. The scene in which she slaps Sharman Joshi while uttering thousands of words on insensiblity of men is hilarious. Even Sharman Joshi deserves a big hand for his performance.

A must see especially for those who are skeptical of Bollywood.