‘Wake Up Sid’ gives ‘Do Knot Disturb’ a beating

Debutant director Ayan Mukerji’s charming “Wake Up Sid” about a young man and a woman five years older has not only wowed critics but pulled in the crowds too, sidelining the Govinda starrer “Do Knot Disturb”.
The box office received a shock with Ashutosh Gowariker’s “What’s Your Raashee” that released Sep 25 but proved to be tedious for audiences with its length and 13 songs.

But the buzz is back with “Wake Up Sid”, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma, that released Friday along with “Do Knot Disturb”.

” ‘Wake Up Sid’ is doing extremely well. We’ve had an occupancy of more than 90 percent across 17 shows over the initial weekend and it is still going strong while ‘Do Knot Disturb’ had only a two-day run with close to 75 percent despite 16 shows,” Amit Awasthi, manager (programming and operations) of Spice Cinemas at Noida, said.
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“We are expecting ‘Wake Up Sid’ to continue a good run at least until the Diwali weekend, which has major releases like ‘Blue’, ‘Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna’ and ‘All The Best’. Though we have ‘Acid Factory’ on Oct 9, we are sincerely doubtful about its future in multiplexes,” he added.

Made at a budget of around Rs.15 crore (Rs.150 million), “Wake Up Sid” has been produced by Dharma Productions Pvt Ltd and distributed by UTV Motion Pictures with around 700 prints worldwide.

” ‘Wake Up Sid’ has had a very good occupancy and opening over the first weekend. It is a different movie for different people and is totally a multiplex movie. It is going to have an extended play,” said a source from PVR Cinemas.

“It has done what ‘Rock On!!’ did last year… it has evoked people’s hidden past and is so associative. While ‘Do Knot Disturb’, despite having almost the equal number of shows as the former (around six each per property) did have a good opening, but it fell flat in no time,” the source added.

“Do Knot Disturb” has been co-produced by Vashu Bhagnani and Big Pictures and directed by David Dhawan. Released across 1,060 screens worldwide, it stars Govinda, Sushmita Sen, Lara Dutta and Riteish Deshmukh.

Yogesh Raizada, corporate head (cinemas) of Wave Cinemas, however, thinks it is too early to tell.

“We kept around 10 shows each for both the movies across different properties and the result has been around 60 and 80 percent respectively for ‘Do Knot Disturb’ and ‘Wake Up Sid’,” said Raizada.

“The response for the latter has been very good and this one is in fact sustaining too but, as far as the long run is concerned, nothing can be said as the business has mostly been done during the initial weekend,” he added.

‘Wake Up Sid’ – a delightful affair

Next time when a star son gets an opportunity to get an author-backed role, let’s not complain. That’s because if he actually goes on to come up with as flawless an act as seen in Wake Up Sid, there is no reason why one should really be looking around for anyone else.

Ranbir Kapoor comes up with a neat, simple and believable performance. When most actors would have been happy to establish their standing in Bollywood with a quintessential romantic hero role, Ranbir is anything but a hero here.

This is why he allows himself to be treated as a ‘kid’ by Konkona Sen Sharma, who by the way is happy to play a woman five years elder to him. However, there is this special something, which brews between them that pretty much gives the true meaning of a platonic relationship.

There are five things that make Wake Up Sid a delightful affair. It has a constant flow throughout; no over the top or understated drama; no ultra emotional strangulation of audiences; absolutely no yuppie cool dude act; and last but not the least, this is an original and refreshing story.

While the film actually becomes really engrossing in the second half, the first half facilitates an adequate groundwork for the story to progress. There are bitter sweet moments in the first half as well but one still wishes for that extra something to kick start that would make Wake Up Sid go beyond a regular “coming of age” film.

This is where young director Ayan Mukerji’s writing comes in handy because unlike a conventional movie, he doesn’t just bring a turnaround in Sid’s character by throwing a song to bring in that ‘overnight transformation’

He keeps it soft and subtle starting from something as simple as Sid learning how to prepare an omelette, keep his comic books stacked, prepare his own bed and of course, earn his very first cheque.

By the time he returns to his dad (Anupam Kher in a short but effective role), you realise that the destination was eventually met even as the journey wasn’t quite ‘on your face’ or ‘over the top’

Meanwhile Konkona gets yet another complex role for herself. She is brilliant. Watch out for her in the interview scene or the outburst when Ranbir decides to go back to his parents’ house. Her irritation in certain scenes with Ranbir is utterly believable too and so are the tender ways in which she looks after him.

The supporting cast fits in well too. The young man who plays Rishi (Namit Das — last seen in The President Is Coming as Ramesh) is just effortless. Kashmira Shah, in her four-scenes act, is a pleasant surprise while Rahul Khanna is decent in the limited footage.

While Wake Up Sid would of course raise Ranbir’s stock in months to come, it would be noticed in a major way for Mukerji’s script sense and direction. He makes the kind of debut that made Farhan Akhtar hot property after Dil Chahta Hai.