Ten reasons to be excited about the Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor-starrer 'Tamasha'

Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone are returning back on screen, three years since Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, with Imitiaz Ali’s Tamasha. Before the release of the film this weekend, here’s a list of reasons why our anticipation for this film is only growing with time:

1. The X Factor: There is a belief that former lovers make much better screen pairs than couples in a relationship. Remember Kareena Kapoor and Shahid setting the screen on fire in Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met immediately after they broke up? By that logic Ranbir and Deepika in Tamasha should score higher grades in the compatibility test than Ranveer Singh and Deepika in Bajirao Mastaani.

2. So far there have been no intense love stories to ignite the screen this year. Tamasha is the first take in 2015 on the twists and turns of the heart.

3. In a shot from Tamasha, Deepika Padukone has her head on a table looking towards the camera from an angle that is normally not a part of mainstream cinema’s lensed lexicon. That one fleeting glance of a woman in love anguished by a feeling of raging defeat is worth the weight in gold. Here is Deepika, unplugged.

4. Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone’s earlier films together have been a mixed bag. Bachna Ae Haseeno had only one segment devoted to this on-screen couple. Their only other full-length film together Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani was a bewildering mishmash of relationships, among a quartet of youngsters. It worked much better on release than in hindsight. Tamasha is in that sense a true litmus test for the pair’s conjoined powers.

5. Imtiaz Ali’s rapport with Ranbir Kapoor is remarkably resonant. They first worked together in Rockstar, which many consider the actor’s best to date.(this author, however, thinks Saawariya remains Ranbir’s most cherishable performance). Now in Tamasha the two have evolved as an actor and director, respectively.

6. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala and director Imtiaz Ali earlier collaborated on Highway, which boasted of an enormously evolved performance by Alia Bhatt. This time the producer-director again claim to have covered new ground, and we have no reason to not to believe them.

7. Tamasha addresses itself to the question of an individual’s yearning as weighed down by his effort to eke out an earning. The clash of the motivational and the real should give a cutting edge to the narrative.We don’t have celluloid heroes and heroines who seek to gratify their imagination by seeking to harness it into wish-fulfilment.

8. This is A R Rahman’s second collaboration with Imtiaz Ali and Ranbir Kapoor after Rockstar. Watch out for the love ballad Tum saath ho sung by Arjit Singh (must he sing every evocative love ballad that makes its way into our movies?) and the long-time-no-hear Alka Yagnik.

9. The love bird’s catch-line in Tamasha is  “What happens in Corsica stays in Corsica". Tamasha will do for this scenic French town, what Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara did for Spain, and what Rockstar couldn’t do for Prague.

10. Tamasha seems to be a breath of fresh air, sandwiched between two spectacular tamashas; the Salman blockbuster Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and a Shah Rukh Khan razzmatazz Dilwale.