Click to play videoCast: Randeep Hooda, Shahana Goswami
Director: Arjun Bali
Rubaru starring Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami has a running time of just one hour and fifty odd minutes, and yet when the lights come back on at the end of the film, you feel like you've spent a lifetime inside the cinema.
Directed by first-timer Arjun Bali, Rubaru is a fairly straight-out rip-off of the Jennifer Love Hewitt-starrer If Only.
Hooda and Goswami star as an unmarried live-in couple in Bangkok who seem to love each other dearly, but bicker and squabble and kiss and make-up just like most young couples do.
He's obsessed with his career, she's looking for a commitment from him. He's focused on getting a client to come on board; she's upset he's forgotten their anniversary. You can see how the situation lends itself to all sorts of silly arguments and disappointments. Then one day, he loses her. For good.
Well not for good, you realise soon enough. He's given another chance to live out that fateful day all over again. And it's up to him to take things into his own hands.
Predictable to the point of being boring, Rubaru is really a test for everyone who's brave enough to take it — how long can you stay awake before you inevitably fall asleep? It's true, this is exactly the kind of film that reclining seats were invented for.
Some of the early banter between the two leads might strike you as familiar; the writers tap into very relatable everyday situations to derive some of the dialogue between the actors.
But before long, the screenplay slips into tedious clichés. You know the guy's going to do things differently when he's given a second chance, you know he loves this girl and he doesn't want her to die, so you know he's going to go to great lengths to make sure it doesn't happen again.
All understandable. But what's hard to digest is the manner in which it all unfolds, and the ridiculous side characters you're introduced to, including a Punjabi-spouting taxi-driver who's a cross between a shrink and a philosopher.
The only thing that's going for Rubaru is its leading lady Shahana Goswami, who dazzled us recently in Rock On. She's a complete natural, a flesh-and-blood person, imperfect and believable unlike many of our plastic princesses on screen.
Shahana plays it real in Rubaru, despite her poorly written character. Randeep Hooda meanwhile, too young and too inexperienced to create a solid character out of his feebly written role, just about manages to get through the film without any major mis-steps.
The film doesn't work, and that's because it doesn't even try. Neat sets and glossy photography can't make up for a weak plot.
I'm going with one out of five for director Arjun Bali's dull and dreary Rubaru. Incidentally, the original film it was copied from — If Only — never got a theatrical release, it went straight to video.
If you ask me, Rubaru deserves the same fate.
Rating: 1 / 5 (Poor)
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