Review of Fan

Image Courtesy: Facebook Page of Fan

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan (Aryan Khanna and Gaurav Chandna), Shriya Pilgaonkar (Neha), Deepika Amin (Gaurav’s mother), Yogendra Tiku (Gaurav’s father), Waluscha de Sousa (Aryan’s wife), Sayani Gupta (Aryan’s PA)

Direction: Maneesh Sharma

Produced by: Aditya Chopra

Screenplay: Habib Faisal

Dialogues: Habib Faisal and Sharat Katariya

Music: Songs- Vishal-Shekhar; Background Score – Andrea Guerra

Cinematography: Manu Ananad

Edited by: Namrat Rao

Production Company: Yash Raj Films

Release Date: 15^th April, 2016

Duration: 143 minutes

Language: Hindi

Fan, a film by Maneesh Sharma (Band Baja Baraat, Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl and Shudh Deshi Romance fame), explores the relationship between a celebrity and one of his fan. Probably it is all around the world, people do adore celebrities and turn out to be fan of their favourite celebrities. In India too, we are absolutely in love with cricket, music and films, and cricket players, singers and film stars as celebrities turn out to be idols of people. The presence of these personalities attracts lot of attention from the common people like us. Appreciating celebrities for their works, being fan of their works is good, but when appreciation and admiration take the shape of obsession, that is when challenges begin. The film fan is the story of one such fan of a film star, whom he imitated throughout his life. The film star was his idol, his life, rather the reason to live. His degree of devotion to his celebrity star made him have deluded belief that he has a special relationship with the star whereas it did not even exist. Indeed the concept of the film is a very beautiful concept. There is a fan in almost all of us. As fans, we might forget the basic underlying fact that even the celebrities are human beings. They need their own space. But this is also equally true that celebrities need to realize that being a public figure, certainly, they have to compromise with their privacies as well. Fans and celebrities’ status usually co-exist.  Indeed, celebrity-fan relationship gets trickier when the fan wants to get personalized attention from his celebrity idol. Because of the concept, this film had great potential, but somewhere screenplay, dialogues are weak. The story has not been developed beautifully. The decision to keep the film songless is not probably a right decision. Even the famous song ‘Jabra Fan’ does not form the part of the film, which indeed is strange. The film certainly has Shah Rukh’s magic in it, but overall having less of entertainment quotient.

The film begins with a few glimpses from the real Shah Rukh Khan’s journey to stardom (introduced as the superstar Aryan Khanna) followed by Gaurav Chandna’s (Shah Rukh Khan) journey from a child to teenager. He is a great fan of the film star Aryan Khanna. Gaurav very much looks like Aryan, although, the difference is also evident with his protruding teeth. Gaurav is owning a cyber café and the name of his cyber café is inspired by his idol - AK Cyber Chat. His room is full of posters of Aryan Khanna. A die-hard fan, who could not take it, if anyone spoke bad of Aryan Khanna. Even as a child, he fought with his school mates, when someone made a comment. Neha’s (Shriya Pilgaonkar) entry happens when she comes to AK Cyber Chat. Gaurav loves Neha, although never told her so. His parents (Yogendra Tiku and Deepika Amin) understand his love towards Aryan Khanna. Gaurav participates in the local cultural porgramme/ competition where he apes Aryan Khanna and wins prize almost every year. And this year too, he won Rs. 20000/- cash and the trophy. With the prize money, trophy and some sweets, he embarks on his journey to meet and wish his celebrity idol Aryan Khanna on his birthday. The interesting aspect is that he travels by the same train that too ‘without ticket’, exactly the same train which Aryan Khanna had boarded ‘without ticket’.  After reaching Mumbai, he goes to the same hotel and stays in the same room where Aryan had stayed. On Aryan’s birthday, when he reaches in front of Mannat, he is shocked to see millions of fans waiting to catch a glimpse of superstar Aryan Khanna. This is where entry of Shah Rukh Khan as Aryan Khanna happens. When Gaurav fails to manage getting a 5-minute face-to-face meeting with Aryan, he chooses a different means to get attention of Aryan. Ultimately he does manage to get the attention of his superstar idol, but that is where, his disillusionment begins. The meeting which finally happens between superstar and his fan does not turn out to be a pleasant one. Gaurav gets hurt to the extent that he becomes obsessive of his idol, and there starts his journey of making the superstar run behind him.

How and in what condition Gaurav finally gets to meet Aryan? What exactly transpired between Gaurav and Aryan? How does the miffed up Gaurav make his idol Aryan run behind him? How does Gaurav take advantage of his resemblance to Aryan? Is Gaurav able to bring disgrace to the superstar Aryan? If yes, how? How does Aryan deal with obsessive Gaurav? Watch the film to get these answers.

Shah Rukh Khan’s performance is good both as Aryan and Gaurav. Shar Rukh appears more of self as Aryan, and as Gaurav, definitely he has put in lot of efforts. He has indeed played both the characters very nicely and brought out the differences of two characters on screen very nicely. But, somewhere, due to many loopholes in the screenplay, the impact is not created. Since, Shah Rukh is there in every frame, there is nothing much to do for rest of the cast. Shriya Pilgaonkar as Gaurav’s love interest Neha and Waluscha de Sousa as Aryan’s wife have done justice to their brief screen time. Gaurav’s parents’ roles played by Yogendra Tiku and Deepika Amin are just adorable. Sayani Gupta (as Aryan’s PA) is indeed noticeable.

Why the whole film is without a song is beyond my understanding. Apart from some initial scenes, there are hardly any scenes which would bring smile to your face. Such a beautiful concept, if clubbed with some good sense of humour and music could have done wonders. The screenplay could have been developed by giving more depth to the characters Aryan and Gaurav. If Guarav’s love towards Aryan is still developed nicely, the encounters / meetings / chase between Aryan and Gaurav are not developed with much clarity and depth.

Fan, a film with a great concept depicting celebrity-fan relationship went awry due to a screenplay with less of entertainment quotient. My rating 3*** for the film is based on two major parameters: Shah Rukh’s energy as Gaurav and another one is the message of the film – Be yourself. You can get inspired by anyone, but grow to define your own personality rather than merely aping someone.  

  

Rating: 3/5 (Good)