[lbo-talk] "Being Cyrus" surprises, engrosses

[Sujeet Bhatt]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/2006/Mar/26/181_1658958,00110003.htm

The Hindustan Times

Being Cyrus surprises, engrosses

HT City/ Vinayak Chakravorty

New Delhi, March 25, 2006

*Being Cyrus
Cast:* Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Simone
Singh, Manoj Pahwa
*Direction:* Homi Adajania
*Rating*: ***

Five minutes into *Being Cyrus*, and you realise why the debutant director
probably chose to make this film in English. It's not just his language of
communication that's niche, his celluloid idiom itself is hatke — *poora
hatke (different - completely different).
*
*Being Cyrus* is quite unlike anything that you have seen on the Indian
screen. If Indian alternate cinema in English was reaching a point of slump
of late, this film should be the veritable kick in its shin.

Debutant Adajania sets the mood from the very first frame with peculiar
panache. His is a cinematic style that's irreverently wicked, brimming with
a tickle of humour that edges on the black.

Adajania's narrative swings between picturesque Panchgani and Mumbai. A
young man Cyrus (Saif Ali Khan) arrives at the Sethna household in
Panchgani, to learn pottery from Dinshaw Sethna, a recluse and retired
veteran artist. Dinshaw lives with his wife Katy (Dimple Kapadia) who, as
the voiceover tells us, doesn't believes in 'eye contact' — she prefers
'breast contact' with any man she comes across straightaway. Back in Mumbai,
the Sethnas own a residential building — it belongs to Dinshaw's father
(Honey Chhaya) actually, a neglected old man who is tormented by his younger
son Farokh (Boman Irani) and daughter-in-law Tina (Simone Singh), who live
with him.

Things aren't all rosy of course on the Sethna family front, we soon
discover along with Cyrus. But things aren't what you expect either in this
film. Post interval, as the film races to a bizarre climax, a new, dark
dimension to the tale will emerge.

*Being Cyrus* is a film that teases its viewers — in the way it unfolds in
layers, in the way it keeps you guessing. But probably Adajania's biggest
tease play lies in having successfully made a film that defies genres — you
can't pin down *Being Cyrus* as any particular 'type' of movie.

Performance-wise, half of Adajania's battle was won with his casting.
Talking individually about the actors would be giving away nuances of the
characters — I'm not getting into it. Put simply, it's a perfect credits
roster.

Watch the film. Watch out for its director.
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