All right, class; raise your hand if you read Archie comic books as a kid.
Seriously? I didn’t expect to see so many hands from twenty- and thirty-somethings!
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| Betty (Khushi Kapoor) is madly in love with Archie (Agastya Nanda), but he's torn between her and richest-girl-in-town Veronica. Which will he choose? |
Or that such a film would be so much fun.
Director Zoya Akhtar’s charmingly retro Indian musical will be adored by everybody who made television’s Glee a monster hit for so many years. Everything about Akhtar’s film is note perfect for its early 1960s setting: Suzanne Caplan Merwanji’s small-town production design; Poornamrita Singh’s colorful, old-school costumes — researched via the archives of Vogue, Esquire, Sears and other period magazines and catalogues — that precisely suit each character; and a roster of young talent that totally sells this throwback concept.
I had flashbacks to the playfully energetic atmosphere that characterized Depression-era musicals, when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland said, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!”
Akhtar does indeed put on a show.
The note-faithful replication of this comic book universe owes its authenticity to the script by Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Ayesha DeVitre, working in full cooperation with Archie Comics Publications. (Pre-credits artwork proves as much.)
The setting is the fictional Anglo-Indian hill station town of Riverdale (apparently located in a part of India that hasn’t been discovered until now). It’s a bucolic community laden with small, family-owned shops, where everybody knows each other.
Riverdale’s founding, explained during a brief prologue told via animated rod puppets, took place after Indian independence. The residents celebrated their new freedoms by planting trees in the names of their children; over the years this space — christened Green Park — became the much-loved center of town.
This information dump, during a prologue, comes fast and furious: almost too quickly to read all the subtitles while trying to absorb the artwork. But don’t panic; the subtitles are easier to follow once past this prologue, in great part because everybody slides back and forth between Hindi and English, sometimes within a single sentence. Well over half the movie is in English.
The plot has two central narratives. The focus is on charming and endearing Archie Andrews (Agasthya Nanda), a budding musician fiercely loyal to his friends, but an incorrigible flirt when it comes to women. Most notably, he can’t choose between peaches-and-cream, girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Khushi Kapoor) and trendy, sophisticated, richest-girl-in-town Veronica Lodge (Suhana Khan).
Their core posse includes:
• Jughead Jones (Mihir Ahuja), Archie’s best pal, a voracious foodie never seen without headwear, who is terrified of girls;
• Reggie Mantle (Vedang Raina), a self-absorbed, mildly arrogant wise guy (who has been softened from his comic book self, who was always an annoying pain in the keister);
• Ethel Muggs (Aditi “Dot” Saigal), an up-and-coming hair stylist: sweet, mildly eccentric, and under-appreciated, with a soft spot for Jughead;
• Dilton Doiley (Yuvraj Menda), whip-smart, a brilliant inventor, and also Riverdale’s most fashionable teen; and
• Moose Mason (Rudra Mahuvakar), a dim-bulb jock with a heart of gold.
Ah, but while these kids are absorbed with rock ’n’ roll, miniskirts and chaste dating — nothing beyond a smooch takes place in Archie’s universe — dire doings are taking place behind the scenes. Hiram Lodge (Alyy Khan), Veronica’s pompous, high-and-mighty father, wants to modernize Riverdale’s business district, with upscale stores and a fancy hotel complex ... the latter to be place smack in the middle of Green Park.
To which we viewers react in shock, thinking, Well, that better not fly.
And yet it might. With skillful, behind-the-scenes maneuvering straight out of a 21st century playbook, Hiram connives to win enough city council votes to rezone Green Park. Meanwhile, he quietly sabotages all the Mom-and-Pop stores, either through intimidation — as with the adorable book store run by Betty’s father (Satyajit Sharma) — or deliberate competition, when a posh new stylist shop woos Ethel from her current employment.
Since this is a Bollywood film, all the romantic and municipal angst takes place against a splashy, effervescent series of dance numbers, each reflecting Akhtar’s insistence that the music embody a teenage atmosphere of youth, rebelliousness and invincibility. We get an early example of this during a vibrant school dance sequence, set to “Woolly Bully”; it’s mere preamble to the equally knock-our-socks-off numbers that follow.
My two favorites: Jughead’s fever dream, as he watches the school’s cheerleading squad morph into femme fatales who evoke the tone of Chicago; and a subsequent number on roller skates. Choreographers Bosco Martis, Caesar Gonsalves, Ganesh Hegde and Gulnaaz Khan obviously spent a lot of time with these “kids,” and the results are spectacular.
Girl-crazy Archie remains oblivious to the more sinister doings, until Reggie, Dilton and several others open his eyes during a splashy production spectacle set to the song “Everything Is Politics” (and ain’t that the truth!).
Nanda is note-perfect as the earnest but romantically fickle Archie, absolutely unable to choose between Betty and Veronica. (This battle has engaged comic book readers for decades, who’ve long divided into two camps ... although this film seems to favor Betty.)
Kapoor is sweetness personified as Betty; Khan is just haughty enough, without becoming unpleasant, as Veronica. (They’re also besties, by the way, which makes Archie’s two-timing nature potentially dangerous.) Khan’s Hiram Lodge is hissably vile, and Kamal Sidhu — as Hiram’s wife, Hermione — is even worse.
Ahuja is hilarious as the often hapless Jughead, never able to resist the lure of a good hamburger.
My only complaint: Archie’s band never gets a chance to play “Sugar Sugar.” (I guess Akhtar couldn’t get the rights.)
Even at 141 minutes, I wish this movie had run longer. It’s that entertaining.
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