Rockstar (2011 film)

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Rockstar
The poster features the protagonist of the film with a guitar and the film title appears at the top.
Theatrical release poster
Directed byImtiaz Ali
Written byImtiaz Ali
Produced bySunil Lulla
Dhilin Mehta
StarringRanbir Kapoor
Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd
Distributed byEros International
Release date
  • 11 November 2011 (2011-11-11)[1]
Running time
159 minutes[2]
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budget₹50 crores[3]
Box office₹110 crores[4]

Rockstar is a 2011 Indian Hindi-language

romantic drama film written and directed by Imtiaz Ali. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri in lead roles, with Aditi Rao Hydari, Piyush Mishra, Shernaz Patel, Kumud Mishra and Shammi Kapoor in pivotal supporting roles. The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman
. The film marks the posthumous screen appearance of Shammi Kapoor, following his death on 14 August 2011.

Rockstar released worldwide in theatres on 11 November 2011. On the day of release, Tibetans in Chennai and Kangra protested against the Central Board of Film Certification, which asked the film-makers to censor scenes featuring the Tibetan flag. Made on a budget of ₹500 million (US$6.3 million), the film grossed ₹1.08 billion (US$14 million) worldwide, emerging as one of the highest-grossing films of the year, majorly appealing to the young urban crowd.[5][6][7] It received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards its novel concept, story, screenplay, dialogue, soundtrack and performances of the cast, with major praise for Kapoor's central performance.[8]

A recipient of numerous accolades, Rockstar received 10 nominations at the 57th Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Ali) and Best Female Debut (Fakhri), and won 5 awards, including Best Actor (Kapoor) and Best Music Director (A. R. Rahman).

Over the years, the film has gone to achieve a cult following, and its soundtrack album has often been termed as the best music album of the decade.[9][10]

Plot

A large crowd gathers outside the Verona Arena in Italy to watch the performance of rockstar Jordan. Despite being mobbed, he storms onto the stage in a fit of rage and starts strumming his guitar.

A flashback reveals the story of Jordan, whose real name is Janardan Jakhar ("JJ"), a

Delhi. He is studying at Hindu College and dreams of being a rockstar like Jim Morrison, for which he is often laughed at by his friends. Khatana, the canteen owner, tells JJ that one thing common among all artists is a life-altering heartbreak. JJ jokingly tells himself that since that hasn't happened yet, he won't be able to reach his idol's status. He watches the dance performance of Heer Kaul, a beautiful girl from St. Stephen's College
during a contest, and overhears that she is the "perfect-heartbreaking-machine". Remembering Khatana's words, he decides to propose to her but suffers humiliation, which he sees as the perfect method for enduring the heartbreak needed for stardom. Over time, he and Heer become good friends, often going on adventures and engaging in risky behaviour.

Heer marries a man named Jai in

Nizamuddin Dargah, singing qawwalis, and then moves into Khatana's home. Ustaad Jameel Khan, a renowned classical musician, hears JJ's singing at the Dargah and prompts Dhingra, the owner of "Platinum Records," to sign him. Sheena, a journalist, interviews JJ and hints to him that Dhingra is sending artists to Prague for a Europe
tour. JJ volunteers to work there, in the hopes of reuniting with Heer.

Heer, meanwhile, suffers from continuous health problems. She meets JJ in Prague and they reconnect, but when he tries to profess his love for her, Heer, being married, spurns him. Despite this, their relationship gets intimate, and Heer feels guilty. As soon as JJ's Prague tours are over, she leaves him. JJ tries to visit her one last time before departing to India but is arrested on trespassing charges filed by Heer's husband. While JJ is being taken away, he sees Heer collapse. Upon being deported back to India, he is overwhelmed by the attention he receives, and clashes with the media and the Indian police, resulting in a jail term. The event garners enough publicity to make Dhingra decide to release JJ's recordings; the album does well, throwing JJ into the limelight.

After being released, JJ terminates his contract with Dhingra, embarks on a country-wide tour, and finally morphs fully into "Jordan", the rockstar he had aspired to be. He turns bitter, arrogant, and lonely as time goes on, but remains a highly popular artist.

Jordan meets Heer's younger sister, Mandy, during one of his concerts, and she asks him to help Heer, who has been diagnosed with

aplastic anaemia. Jordan's presence causes Heer to somewhat recover and her blood level rise. He starts disregarding his musical obligations to spend more time with her, and Khatana, his manager now, asks Heer to persuade Jordan to attend his concerts. Heer does so, and Jordan resumes his tour with his first concert at Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
. Upon returning, Heer's health deteriorates again. She slips into a coma and is discovered to be pregnant with Jordan's child. When Mandy informs Jordan of Heer's condition, he leaves one of his shows midway and goes to her hospital bed. He tries to wake her up but she remains non-responsive. Jordan realises that she will not survive and goes numb. Heer dies offscreen, leaving Jordan in a permanent state of grief, who finally achieves international stardom like his idol.

The film cuts back to the concert in Verona and while performing, Jordan sees a vision of a smiling Heer walking towards him. The film ends with a line from the poet Rumi's poem that the film began with; translated, it means: "Away, beyond all concepts of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there."

Cast

Production

Casting

Kareena Kapoor's performance in his previous directorial Jab We Met (2007) and wanted to cast her in the film. However, the script required some romantic scenes between the leads. As Ranbir and Kareena happened to be cousins, this was touted as a problem. Moreover, the filmmakers did not want to replace Ranbir with any other actor as the character he portrayed was reportedly suitable only for him. They then made a joint decision to replace Kapoor with Nargis Fakhri, after initially approaching Sonam Kapoor and Diana Penty for the replacement.[12][13][14] The film marked Shammi Kapoor's last appearance in a feature film; he died on 14 August 2011.[15]

Filming

The shooting for Rockstar began in May 2010. A major part of the shooting took place in Kashmir at

Nizamuddin Dargah, Greater Kailash, Munirka, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Amity School (deleted scenes), Connaught Place, Shri Ram College of Commerce, BL Kapoor Hospital, Rajendra Nagar, St. Stephen's College and Hindu College, which was Ali's alma mater.[16][17][18]

Foreign sequences were shot at Wenceslas Square, Charles Bridge and the Old Town in parts of Prague and in Liberec (at Dr. Beneš Square, in front of the Liebieg Villa).[19] The film was shot in reverse as the crew didn't want to break the continuity of Ranbir's hairstyle. The climax with long hair was shot first.[11] Ranbir had to transform himself into a rockstar: he practised guitar at A. R. Rahman's studio in Chennai for many days, read Kurt Cobain's biography and familiarised himself with Jats.[20]

Rockstar's costumes were designed by

Kashmiri Pandit girl, wore a traditional Kashmiri Pandit wedding outfit in the wedding scene, which included pheran, dejhoor (ear ornament) and taranga (head cap worn underneath the veil).[22] This also marked the first time in Bollywood that a Kashmiri Pandit wedding was shown.[23]

Soundtrack

Main article: Rockstar (soundtrack)

The music for the film is composed and scored by A. R. Rahman. This also marks the first Imtiaz Ali film since his debut Socha Na Tha (2005), to have the same composer for both film score and songs.

The soundtrack features 14 tracks,[24] with all the songs' lyrics penned by Irshad Kamil. The recording of the album took place in Chennai, London and Mumbai. Mohit Chauhan had lent his voice for nine songs. The audio rights were bought by T-Series.[25] Upon release on 30 September 2011, it received widespread critical acclaim. "Sadda Haq" became the most popular song of the album and was regarded as a "youth anthem".[26]

Release

Rockstar released on 11 November 2011 and saw a high advance opening at

Star Gold on 25 February 2012. The film has been streaming available on Eros Now and JioCinema
.

Reception

Critical response

Rockstar received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards its novel concept, story, screenplay, dialogue, soundtrack and performances of the cast, with major praise for Kapoor's central performance.

CNN-IBN also gave 3 stars out of 5, commenting "Imtiaz Ali's Rockstar is a far-from-perfect film, but it has honesty and depth, which is mostly missing in Hindi films today."[36]

Sumit Bhattacharya of Rediff gave a rating of 2.5 out of 5, saying that "Rockstar is what is called a one-time watch", and highlighted that the film "is more

Sufi soul. If only it had been set free and allowed to go the whole hog!"[38] Komal Nahta of Koimoi again gave the film 2.5 out of 5, and said, "Rockstar will meet with a mixed response: one section of the audience (mainly the young urban crowd) will love it, while another section (mainly the single-screen audience and public of smaller cities) will find it ordinary."[39] Kaveree Bamzai of India Today gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said "A. R. Rahman's music is the soul of the film. What is missing is the spine, leaving just a jelly in place."[40] Yahoo! gave the film 1 star out of 5, and said "Rockstar drives home an unscientific hypothesis that people who’ve endured sufferings/heartbreak etc will reach their creative best."[41] A reviewer from Reuters commented that Kapoor and Rahman are the stars of the film while saying "Rockstar works on so many levels, but it fails miserably on so many more.".[42] Anuj Kumar of The Hindu said "Imtiaz Ali's latest is yet another good-looking product where a promising new-age director fails to translate his thoughts into something convincing."[43]

Controversy

Major parts of the song "

Dharamsala and people waving the free Tibet flag in the backdrop were shown in the song video. This triggered a dispute between Central Board of Film Certification and Imtiaz Ali when the Board asked Ali to blur the flag before the film hit theatres, but the director refused to do it. Imtiaz Ali said, "I am not concerned at all. I have been out of India for long and don’t know what is going on, but I don’t see anything controversial in the intention portrayal in the movie. The purpose of the movie is not to make any social message, it is more about personal freedom rather than a geographical issue."[44] However, he had to remove the sequence from the video to get the film's censor done. Later an official from the Board stated: "The Censor Board chief explained to them that all the cuts were made by the director voluntarily, and he had the option of appealing to a review board which he didn’t do. There were certain discussions between (Imtiaz) Ali and the Board regarding retaining a kiss between two actors (Kapoor and Fakhri), but there has been no disagreement regarding deleting the flag from the frames." The controversy sparked protests among the Tibetan diaspora in Dharamsala and Chennai.[45] Later, television broadcasts blotted out a "Free Tibet
" banner featured in the song.

Box office

Domestic

Upon release, Rockstar had a strong opening. The film opened to a strong response at multiplexes with bookings averaging around 60–70%, and single screens witnessed a lower capacity at around 30–40%.

cities, the "star power" of Ranbir Kapoor as well as the youthful theme of the film.[6] The film showed growth on Saturday by grossing ₹112.5 million (US$1.4 million) nett, therefore taking its two-day net total to ₹205 million (US$2.6 million).[48] A similar growth was seen on Sunday, and hence the first weekend collection ended at ₹337.5 million (US$4.2 million) nett, the majority of which was collected from Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore.[49]

Rockstar opened well on Monday collecting around ₹57.5 million (US$720,000) nett, with 40% drop as compared to the first day collections, thus taking the four-day total to ₹390 million (US$4.9 million) nett.[50] The film collection saw another noticeable fall on Tuesday as it collected around ₹42.5 million (US$530,000) nett, with five days collection totalling to ₹432.5 million (US$5.4 million) nett.[51] At the end of first week, the film had a good collection by grossing ₹474.6 million (US$5.9 million) nett, though the film had found appreciation only with a small section of the audience.[52] In the process, it was ranked ninth in the list of all-time first week domestic collections.[53]

Rockstar grossed ₹25.0 million (US$310,000) nett on second Friday, with a 75% drop as compared to the first day.[54] On Saturday, the film collected ₹32.5 million (US$410,000) nett, and ₹42.5 million (US$530,000) nett on Sunday, taking the second weekend collection totalled at ₹100 million (US$1.3 million), representing a 70% drop from its first weekend. As of ten days, the film had collected approximately ₹574.6 million (US$7.2 million) nett.[55] Rockstar made ₹158.5 million (US$2.0 million) nett in the second week, declining by 67% and taking the two-week collection totalled at ₹633.1 million (US$7.9 million) nett.[56] The film on week three managed to earn ₹29.6 million (US$370,000), and hence taking three weeks collections to ₹662.7 million (US$8.3 million).[57] By the end of its fifth week, the film netted ₹686.15 million (US$8.6 million).[58]

International

Rockstar managed to gross $3.3 million from all overseas markets overall and was termed as below the mark. The film collected

£185,000 in the UK, $612,000 in North America, 370,000 in UAE, and $100,000 in Australia.[59]

Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by Rockstar (2011 film)

See also

References

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External links

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