Omair Alavi Dobara Phir Se is like that light at the end of the tunnel that shows you that the future is bright but you have to bear darkness for certain amount of time. Mehreen Jabbar’s romantic flick has all the ingredients of a family movie; what it lacks is box office appeal but then,…
SAMAA | Omair Alavi – Posted: Nov 29, 2016 | Last Updated: 5 years ago
Omair Alavi
Dobara Phir Se is like that light at the end of the tunnel that shows you that the future is bright but you have to bear darkness for certain amount of time. Mehreen Jabbar’s romantic flick has all the ingredients of a family movie; what it lacks is box office appeal but then, many flicks with even that have failed bombed in the past. It has a cast to die for, situations that are real-life and technical finesse that you hardly expect from a Pakistani film.
DPS is not just a rom-com featuring a young guy and a young gal; it’s something more beautiful than that. Zainab (Hareem Farooq) is a divorcée who works as an illustrator to raise her son Zaid (Moosa Khan) without the help of her estranged husband Asim (Shaz Khan). She meets Hammad (Adeel Husain) during a party at their friends’ place (played by Ali Kazmi and Sanam Saeed) and they fall in love with the passage of time. Hammad dumps her girlfriend Natasha (Tooba Siddiqui) for Zainab and when all seems to be heading towards a happy ending, things take a turn for worse. Will Hammad go back to Natasha who still cares about him? Will Zainab find true love in someone else? Will Asim return to take back his ex-wife for the sake of their son? Watch Dobara Phir Se at least once to know how it all ends.
The film’s highlightsare its fast-paced script and editing, perfect casting and cinematography – writer Bilal Sami, editor Dipika Kalra, casting director Rita Powers and Cinematographer Andreas Burgess (two time Emmy Award winner) must be commended for a job well done. The scenes at the Times Square or at the Subway Station in America or on the local bus in Pakistan, the ones on the Ferry and the shadi sequence is something that haven’t been done before this beautifully in Pakistan. As captain of the ship, Mehreen’s direction was as good as it can be and those expecting a sob-fest were given a well-cooked dish they least expected. The cast is so perfectly picked that Sanam’s character would have looked bad had it been done by Tooba or Hareem for that matter. Similarly, the guys were like pieces of jigsaw puzzle that fitted their character in a faultless way.
Something about the acting – Adeel Husain never lets you feel that he is not being himself as he comes out as a mature individual who has too much on his plate; Hareem Farooq excels as the female lead and mother of one child who displays her array of emotions while not being sure what life has in store for her. Moor star Shaz Khan continues to impress with his method acting – this time as the possessive husband – and your blood boils whenever he makes his entry. Moosa Khan resembles Shaz Khan’s character and they can easily pass as real-life father and son; it’s Moosa’s role that decides the end of the movie and with his charmed performance, he makes you love him unconditionally.
Model-turned-actress Tooba Siddiqui looks elegant while the surprise performance comes from Sanam Saeed who as a friend of Hareem’s character is top-notch. Her expressions when she is talking to the kid or his mother are priceless and might remind of that aunt you always wanted to be around. Ali Kazmi finally makes his film debut and walks out with an A-class performance, something you would have expected from the star kid of Rahat and Sahira Kazmi. Veteran actress Atiqa Odho plays mother-in-law to Hareem’s character but her role is written so beautifully that you will be compelled to praise the writer.
So why are people saying that the film might not appeal to the average cinegoer? There is no item song – in fact just 2 songs in the film have been lip-synced. There is a predictable story the end of which was obvious from the beginning. There is presence of Brands throughout the movie and although the characters don’t spell out the name of the product, it’s mostly in your face, literally. For those who don’t watch English films (read Hollywood) the pace of DPS might be slow but when the same thing is presented in Bollywood, it automatically becomes believable for our audience.
On the whole, DPS is a breath of fresh air for Pakistani cinema and you can easily term it a step in the right direction. It is films like these that will better the image of Pakistan abroad and show to the world that cinema is evolving in the country. The background score by Haniya Aslam and the classic songs by an array of music composers and singers including Vishal Bharadwaj and wife Rekha, Shiraz Uppal, Jimmy Khan, Ali Hamza, Arooj Aftab and Haniya herself give you the international feel. Mehreen Jabbar extracts the best performance from her extremely good-looking cast and even if the film doesn’t do well at the Box Office, it has already made its mark as something not to missed.
