Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Reeling 2008

by Anna Pulley

When Kiran Met Karen

Written, produced and directed (red flag, red flag!) by Manan Singh Katohora, When Kiran Met Karen stars Kiran (Chriselle Almeida), a Bollywood actress with a coke habit and a vitriolic temper, especially towards journalists, until she meets Karen (Kelli Holsopple), an up-and-coming writer for Reel Women magazine, and falls improbably in love with her over the space of an afternoon. Stilted dialogue, ludicrous plot twists and countless minutes of footage involving the characters puttering around the house make this film downright laughable. The cinematography of the 15-minute plant-watering scene, however, is off the hook!

When we first meet Kiran, she is pleasantly giving a press conference about her latest movie. Then one reporter asks her about a supposed affair between one of her male co-stars and she flies into a blistering rage, a la Bjork circa 1996. She meets up with her fiancé Dave soon after, does some blow on the foosball table, flies into another rage, which turns into sex and then more puttering. After we watch her wander around the house, put some champagne in the fridge, text Dave to get her more coke, watch TV in two different rooms, and squirm around on a pool table, she finally gets around to calling Karen for an interview, which may in fact be the climax of the film.

Through flashbacks we learn that Dave used to sport some pretty terrible sideburns and that he launched Kiran's career, which is the sole reason she's still with him (oh, and his drug connections). After two minutes of questioning, Kiran and Karen begin drinking a lot of champagne, impersonating Shakespeare characters and seducing each other via text message while they are SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. When Kiran somehow injures her inner thigh climbing up the balcony, Karen is right there with an antiseptic swab!

On and on the ridiculousness goes, for 115 minutes. This movie might not be so bad if it were ten minutes long, which the plot could easily accommodate. As it is, the drawn out soap opera of their uninteresting lives is just plain painful.