The film follows Vicky and Sonu Duggal, played by Anil George and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, two
brothers struggling to produce illegal sex-horror films in the mid
1980's. It explores the intense and mutually destructive relationship
between the Duggal brothers and a struggling actress Pinky, played by
Niharika Singh. Besides
winning the Best Film Award at the 14th Mumbai International Film
Festival, the 'Reliance Media Works CreaTech (Creativity &
Technology) Award' and Best Feature Film Award at the 11th Indian Film
Festival of Los Angeles and the official selection of Un Certain Regard
in Cannes Film Festival, globally, Miss Lovely has fascinated just about
everybody. Deconstructing the morally bankrupt industry one fragment at
a time, Miss Lovely can be easily misunderstood for its original
storytelling and controversial content. Jonathan Romney of Sight &
Sound described the film as "A shock to the system – an Indian film like
I’d never seen." Constantly asserting its own originality, the film
juggles spools of film and narrative, reality and fantasy that is almost
akin to contemplative art. It has been compared to Rainer Werner
Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Wong Kar Wai's
Chungking Express and Dario Argento's Suspiria.
Variety's Alissa Simon avers, "something new in Indian film making,
neither Bollywood nor traditional art cinema, the picture provides a
unique, immersive experience…one that owes as much to dock and
experimental filmmakers as to Scorsese, Welles and von Sternberg,
plunging viewers into the characters' social milieu." While 'Film
Comment's' Gavin Smith felt that the film was the strongest in the Un
Certain Regard section writing. "I hope we do hear more from Indian
director Ashim Ahluwalia, whose lively, fast-and-loose Miss Lovely,
about two brothers toiling in the world of Bollywood's B-movie and soft
core porn production in the Eighties, had an off-kilter, at times
delirious first hour and then settled into a pungent story of jealousy,
betrayal, and doomed love."
Libertas
Film Magazine's Joe Bendel noted, "Straddling genres, Ahluwalia toys
with crime story elements, but essentially tells a Cain and Abel tale,
skewering India’s celebrity-obsessed culture and sexual mores along the
way. Stylistically, he spans the gamut from triply disorienting to
in-your-face naturalism. This is kitchen-sink film making at
its most relentlessly indie. Part expose and part fall-from-grace epic,
Miss Lovely is highly recommended for those who simply love films about
filmmaking." The New York Times' Joan Dupont profiled Miss Lovely and
the directorship Ahluwalia in a piece titled "Mumbai in the Bad Old
Days".
Director
Ashim Ahluwalia was surprised by the excitement the film has generated
worldwide, from being an official entry to Cannes and Toronto to winning
numerous "Best Film" awards. “For the West, Indian cinema is either
Satyajit Ray or Bollywood. Miss Lovely, on the other hand, is a mix of
so many different genres, with a storytelling style and atmosphere that
is pretty wild. It sometimes moves like a novel with multiple characters
and side stories. I didn't expect people to react to it so
enthusiastically.” The ‘A’ certification doesn't matter
for this director either. “The story does take place in the dark, lower
depths of the industry, so this is not the kind of space that we
usually depict in our films. It is a very adult film that explores
sexuality and violence and the things that people do to each other when
they are struggling to make it in a city. I'm happy that the censor
board didn't ban it and, instead, eventually opted to grant it very few
cuts.”
Miss Lovely is all set for a January 17 India release.
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