An obsessive fan uncannily resembles a star he adores. Think of the possibilities this one-line story idea can birth. In the hands of a filmmaker who loves to get creative, it could develop into a bizarre masterpiece. In the hands of another filmmaker who enjoys making psychological thrillers, it could be the film they had waited to dig their hands into. Why, then, should it become a perplexingly illogical thriller about a cocky and paranoid star chasing a heartbroken fan out to destroy the stardom he holds dear through two different cities? Maneesh Sharma's Fan becomes just that.
We get why Sharma chose to cast Shah Rukh Khan in this role. I mean, who else could it have been? The man's stardom knows no limits. His name that became synonymous with Hindi cinema two decades ago still amasses an enormous following wherever he goes. And it has been a while since we saw him clawing into a meaty role. (It has been nine long years since Chak De! India.) But it has been longer since we saw him as a nobody, not as the most popular guy in college, not as the son of an affluent father, but just a regular guy who gets lost in the crowd. A guy who picks up a petty fight with three aggressive men, a guy who loves just for a fleeting moment the idea of having a fan-following. Sharma and Khan, with writer Habib Faisal, create an utterly ordinary and likable Delhi guy (which, for some reason, is no longer easy to do in Hindi cinema) who is besotted with a man he watches every other month on the big screen. All he wants are five minutes with his "god."
I have never been a fan of Shah Rukh Khan, having only admired a few performances of his, but I have immense respect for him. The absurd extent of his stardom notwithstanding, he has proven time and time again that he can act, that he's more than capable of just romancing women on-screen or hamming it up as a villain in some tacky thriller. And once in a while when a turn like this from him comes along -- committed and unassuming, escaping the star persona that always seems to accompany him to the big screen -- it makes me want to get up and embrace it. It is an outstanding performance, one that reminded me of Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Ethan and Joel Coen's Fargo. (May the cinematic gods forgive me for that outrageous comparison.) As his own biggest fan, Khan is willfully over-the-top, as McDormand also was in the role that fetched her an Oscar. But it is for a reason: the fan apes the man he sees on the big screen, his gait, the way he talks and conducts himself. And acting in Hindi cinema has always been only a bit shy of hammy. But underneath the theatricality on display, there's emotion. Khan imbues the character of Gaurav, the fan, with a naivety that makes us relate with him instantly. He's attracted not to the glamour of the film industry but to the man, Aryan Khanna, the star, who for him represents the industry. Who represents the rag-to-riches myth that Gaurav wants for himself.
In the first half, Fan does what we expect it to do. It gives us a fan right out of the many stories the papers run on a celebrity's birthday and paints his Delhi middle-class life using vivid details. When the story moves to Mumbai, where the admirer comes with a wish to meet his hero and present him with a gift on his birthday, we get to know him a little better. He's confident and foolishly audacious. He's not afraid to create a ruckus in order to get what he wants. (That means he will not think twice before bribing a man or even hanging out of a running train to quench his fanboy whims.) And yet he is vulnerable. He is emotional and sensitive.
There are a couple of nicely done sequences, like the one where Gaurav is momentarily stunned to see the star in the flesh and calls out to him, but his voice is lost in the uproar that follows when Aryan Khanna appears. But here's the problem: the approach is too simplistic. Using real-life footage, we see the magnitude of Aryan Khanna's stardom, but the film fails to cash in on it in the next moment. How can a superstar walk around with only four cronies? How can he not get mobbed when he is alone? And for how long could this go on? (But these mistakes, hardly worthy of attention in the first half, balloon into something graver and jeopardize the appeal of the story in the second.) The fan is coolly snubbed by his idol and is left disillusioned. Left to deal with the heartbreak. Sharma wants to make us fear a heartbroken fan. He sets up the clash neatly, developing both characters just about enough to give us an idea what awaits us.
And then the film nosedives.
To achieve the briskness and adrenaline rush of thrillers like the Bourne series (here's a timely question: Why?) that consist of many chases through alleys and rooftops and in its attempt to imitate something similar, Fan completely shuns logic and renounces its psychodramatic ambitions. At least the Bourne films earned those chases. Not only does it turn humdrum with an added splash of melodrama, it transforms into something far worse, something we didn't expect: a sort of half-baked commercial outing where the star gives a speech about why fans must carve an identity for themselves and not make their life be about someone they see on the big screen. We suspect the heavy-handedness has something to do with making it a more sellable product. Either way, the attempt to balance melodrama with action does not make for a very memorable setup.
What made Rob Reiner's Misery and Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, two films about obsessive fans reaching out to their idols, absolutely first-rate was that they made the most of their characters and settings. But if the likable and not-really-crazy antagonist of The King of Comedy was dumped in a Misery-like setting, things would understandably turn absurd. Fan does something similar. We feel for the fan, but it is hard to buy the fact that an ordinary nobody would go that far in his quest for vengeance. He needed a different, more reasonable story. And Shah Rukh Khan, too. He brought his A-game. Unfortunately, the script didn't rise to the challenge this time around.
(Not For Reproduction)
We get why Sharma chose to cast Shah Rukh Khan in this role. I mean, who else could it have been? The man's stardom knows no limits. His name that became synonymous with Hindi cinema two decades ago still amasses an enormous following wherever he goes. And it has been a while since we saw him clawing into a meaty role. (It has been nine long years since Chak De! India.) But it has been longer since we saw him as a nobody, not as the most popular guy in college, not as the son of an affluent father, but just a regular guy who gets lost in the crowd. A guy who picks up a petty fight with three aggressive men, a guy who loves just for a fleeting moment the idea of having a fan-following. Sharma and Khan, with writer Habib Faisal, create an utterly ordinary and likable Delhi guy (which, for some reason, is no longer easy to do in Hindi cinema) who is besotted with a man he watches every other month on the big screen. All he wants are five minutes with his "god."
I have never been a fan of Shah Rukh Khan, having only admired a few performances of his, but I have immense respect for him. The absurd extent of his stardom notwithstanding, he has proven time and time again that he can act, that he's more than capable of just romancing women on-screen or hamming it up as a villain in some tacky thriller. And once in a while when a turn like this from him comes along -- committed and unassuming, escaping the star persona that always seems to accompany him to the big screen -- it makes me want to get up and embrace it. It is an outstanding performance, one that reminded me of Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Ethan and Joel Coen's Fargo. (May the cinematic gods forgive me for that outrageous comparison.) As his own biggest fan, Khan is willfully over-the-top, as McDormand also was in the role that fetched her an Oscar. But it is for a reason: the fan apes the man he sees on the big screen, his gait, the way he talks and conducts himself. And acting in Hindi cinema has always been only a bit shy of hammy. But underneath the theatricality on display, there's emotion. Khan imbues the character of Gaurav, the fan, with a naivety that makes us relate with him instantly. He's attracted not to the glamour of the film industry but to the man, Aryan Khanna, the star, who for him represents the industry. Who represents the rag-to-riches myth that Gaurav wants for himself.
In the first half, Fan does what we expect it to do. It gives us a fan right out of the many stories the papers run on a celebrity's birthday and paints his Delhi middle-class life using vivid details. When the story moves to Mumbai, where the admirer comes with a wish to meet his hero and present him with a gift on his birthday, we get to know him a little better. He's confident and foolishly audacious. He's not afraid to create a ruckus in order to get what he wants. (That means he will not think twice before bribing a man or even hanging out of a running train to quench his fanboy whims.) And yet he is vulnerable. He is emotional and sensitive.
There are a couple of nicely done sequences, like the one where Gaurav is momentarily stunned to see the star in the flesh and calls out to him, but his voice is lost in the uproar that follows when Aryan Khanna appears. But here's the problem: the approach is too simplistic. Using real-life footage, we see the magnitude of Aryan Khanna's stardom, but the film fails to cash in on it in the next moment. How can a superstar walk around with only four cronies? How can he not get mobbed when he is alone? And for how long could this go on? (But these mistakes, hardly worthy of attention in the first half, balloon into something graver and jeopardize the appeal of the story in the second.) The fan is coolly snubbed by his idol and is left disillusioned. Left to deal with the heartbreak. Sharma wants to make us fear a heartbroken fan. He sets up the clash neatly, developing both characters just about enough to give us an idea what awaits us.
And then the film nosedives.
To achieve the briskness and adrenaline rush of thrillers like the Bourne series (here's a timely question: Why?) that consist of many chases through alleys and rooftops and in its attempt to imitate something similar, Fan completely shuns logic and renounces its psychodramatic ambitions. At least the Bourne films earned those chases. Not only does it turn humdrum with an added splash of melodrama, it transforms into something far worse, something we didn't expect: a sort of half-baked commercial outing where the star gives a speech about why fans must carve an identity for themselves and not make their life be about someone they see on the big screen. We suspect the heavy-handedness has something to do with making it a more sellable product. Either way, the attempt to balance melodrama with action does not make for a very memorable setup.
What made Rob Reiner's Misery and Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, two films about obsessive fans reaching out to their idols, absolutely first-rate was that they made the most of their characters and settings. But if the likable and not-really-crazy antagonist of The King of Comedy was dumped in a Misery-like setting, things would understandably turn absurd. Fan does something similar. We feel for the fan, but it is hard to buy the fact that an ordinary nobody would go that far in his quest for vengeance. He needed a different, more reasonable story. And Shah Rukh Khan, too. He brought his A-game. Unfortunately, the script didn't rise to the challenge this time around.
(Not For Reproduction)
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