Aaja Nachle

After a disturbing phone call during a dance rehearsal in faraway New York pulls a young woman back home, to a little village in India. Her guru is dying, and his legacy, a dance-drama complex called, appropriately, Ajanta, is facing imminent destruction. For Dia, it is a clarion call to action.

The story of Aaja Nachle has been crafted expressly for its star. Madhuri Dixit, the last Diva of Bollywood, has been away in the US being good wife and mom. She’s now on a mission to re-claim her place in the pantheon, just like her heroine Dia, who has two months to win over Shamli, the town she fled years ago, in order to save her guru’s dharohar.

To that end, Dia does everything an adopted New Yorker can. She employs a winsome twang to win over Shamli’s foreign-educated MP, who also happens to be an ex-royal (Akshaye). She runs an eye over a disgruntled youth (Kunal) and grabs him for a lead role in the show she’s planning to put up with the clunky participation of the townspeople, who are largely indifferent to her efforts. She teaches a leaky-nosed foul-mouthed harpy (Konkona) how to dress pretty to attract said youth. She foils local businessman (Irrfan) who wants to build a mall after razing Ajanta to the ground, by making his wife, her bachpan ki saheli (Divya) see the light. She even pulls a creaky marriage together by roping in the stuffy-sarkari-babu husband (Vinay Pathak) so that sad wifey (Sushmita) perks up. Whew.

Does ace lensman Anil Mehta, who’s first feature this is, pull it off? Not really. Nachle comes off, in most part, as flat and one-dimensional. If you try putting a finger through the screen, it will come up against a fake house in a fake village: Lagaan’s village was also built for the movie, but that was set in the past. This is here and now, and the artifice of the tricked-up set rubs off on the film.

Does Madhuri conquer? Not really. Just so we won’t expect the Mads she used to be, Dia’s a mommy. She’s given a chatty daughter for company, not a lover. Her smile still lights up the screen. And though she’s not as lissome as she was, she still has killer moves. But she’s not played to her strengths. The vapid script keeps her flitting about so much among the tackily-written characters, that she only just about gets to dance. And then she’s given rows of faceless extras for back-up. Except for the title track, there’s not much happening in the choreography, and the grand finale drags on and on. Where’s that one scintillating solo?

Nope, Ms M, you’ll have to harness another comeback vehicle. This one’s not going anywhere in a hurry.