Citylights movie review: Rajkumar Rao gives another award winning performance

Hansal Mehta underlines the underbelly of the city in an unusual yet familiar manner. This director has some affection for actor Rajkumar Rao that he always wants to make a film with him only and why not since it's a award winning jodi.Ratings-***1/2Stars- Rajkumar Rao, Patralekha, Manav KaulDirector-Hansal MehtaMusic Director- Jeet GangulyThere is a ruralisation in his appearance on screen and Hansal utilizes that simplification and helplessness in his flick. While grabbing your seat in theatre why you should expect more from Rajkumar along with his leading actress Patralekha because the story is known and Bollywood has been following a strugglers' story since decades. These two actors' treatment is so rare in this drama that you get a feeling, which would have never come before while watching such flicks depicting deprive.Rao plays Deepak, who was earlier a driver in Army. He has a happy small family including his wife Rakhi (Patralekha) and a six-year old daughter in Rajasthan. But things take a tragic shape when he fails to pay the rent of the shop where he runs a small business. He is thrown out of the shop. Deepak decides to move to Mumbai to begin a new journey, unaware of the uphill struggle and betrayal waiting for him and his family there.He gets to taste the first disloyalty in the city of dreams when his friend, his only hope, doesn't turn up. Now how alone Deepak struggles and his wife too pays the price to survive in the city which surely gives its people whatever they desire but with a major cost.While watching the flick I couldn't stop myself comparing it with Hansal Mehta's National Award winning ‘Shahid', which was more or less a documentary sort of epic drama. Needless to say, ‘Citylights' is more commercial than ‘Shahid'. The reason isn't that it possesses any masala content and I am glad it doesn't. Being backed with the names like Fox Star Studios and Mahesh Bhatt, this dark drama helps our Indian cinema to take a step ahead and make such flicks more acceptable and saleable.But coming back to flick, what perturbs the flow at couple of occasions in a rather perfect flick, is the manner in which the emotions get exploited. Despite two such actors who are capable in engrossing you and pulling off any scene with their exceptional acting prowess, the background score and songs diminishes their impact which could have been more provocative and sentimental.While in Shahid, Hansal used less of music and let its actors do the required job to emote, here the melody in the background damages the flow of scenes meant to influence and impress.Having, said that, there are innumerable things to applaud. Mumbai is once again the centre for presenting the desolation, exploitation, the dilemmas and desperation. Hansal uses the lanes not to provide a tour to tempt but to haunt just like our protagonists gets to. As Deepak goes shop to shop seeking for a job with optimism in his eyes and the way he is rebuffed makes you anxious.After being snubbed everywhere he finally grabs one at a private security agency not because of his army background but for being a puppet entertaining his seniors with less humorous jokes.His wife too seeks a job and gets one undesirably as a bar dancer. Her interviewer scans her top to bottom, asks her to turn around until she finally breaks down in tears but is cheered up soon. These are few among several other instances where Hansal gives the best treatment one couldn't even imagine. How one's life could turn so cruel and suppressive under the disguise of being jobless and feeble, Hansal presents the dark realities with delicacy and improvisation. No scene looks unreal and there is nothing in the movie you could complain about except it doesn't have any masala content in it because it isn't made so.Hansal mostly uses the long silent conversations between its characters and mostly between the lead couple. The one scene, where drunken Rajkumar asks Patralekha to dance like she does in the bar and is slapped to finally fall in her lap, presents frustration, forgiveness and helplessness.We couldn't imagine this flick without these two actors. Rajkumar Rao is effortless in carrying emotion in every scene. With this flick he proves it yet again that he is the master in every scene and can pull off any of them efficiently.Patralekha is another gem Hansal Mehta has given to Bollywood. In some scenes she overpowers Rao. However, few more projects will decide her future course of action.Special mention of Manav Kaul has to be given here. The senior to Rajkumar Rao, Manav presents grey shade in this flick. Last witnessed in Kai Po Che, the actor is cunning and excels in every scene.I'll go with three and a half stars for Citylights which for sure deserves a watch. It wouldn't appeal the masses but surely needs attention.