Burlesque

Rating:***

It may claim to be many things but really Burlesque is about Christina Aguilera. When a bona fide music star decides to act,she can’t find a role more tailor-made than this,where she performs eight of the 10 tracks,is on screen most of the time,gets to be raunchy and nice,has two men falling for her and saves a famous club on the strength of her voice alone.

One has no doubts about Aguilera’s singing abilities,which have been well acknowledged. However,director Antin,who also wrote the screenplay apparently with Aguilera in mind,should have put a little more effort into the rest of the story. For lack of it,actors of the calibre of Cher and Tucci,and the not so great talents of Gigandet and others,are just cheering audiences to her rising star. A club that seems to have been quite popular even before Ali

(Aguilera) walked in from Iowa to be a dancer seems to have

jettisoned everyone else once she gets on the stage.

Burlesque has no time for even the drama of rivalries,with the sole woman who thinks of questioning Ali’s rising importance walking away after merely stomping her foot. Ali’s affair with the bartender,played by a hat-toting,kohl-lined Gigandet,is a bubble-gum romance,bathed in warm hues with him looking longingly from afar — his fiancée walks in,to also go stomping out.

The third angle to the story,of the club being in mortgage,is such a vague topic that Antin chooses to hide it behind even vaguer details. It seems to exist only for Ali to resolve it,stomping in.

The one person who rises above all this is Cher,the diva who owns the club and runs it like a kind mother — keeping her heart open,even if sometimes not her eyes and ears. She is

superb,with and without the singing,and Burlesque could do with her doing more of everything. There are some lessons there that Aguilera,who has made a decent beginning,could take home.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com