Well, the title by no means tries to convey that the movie is bad or anything. In fact, I watched the movie last weekend with my School friends in Ahmedabad and completely fell in love with the movie. More specifically, the lucid way in which the movie shows the “peer-pressure” and the mind-set of most Indian homes was absolutely amazing. Being a student in an Engineering College myself, I saw first-hand the reasons why some of my fellow-students took up engineering and also the issues they faced because of difference in their aptitude as against their field of specialization.
Nevertheless, this is not a movie review, a lot of people have already reviewed this movie by now and there is one review in particular, written by a friend of mine at 3 Idiots: A must watch for every Non-Idiot!, which is pretty close to what I would have written, and hence there is no real need for me to have a redundant post. This is however, a post on the recent row that is going on between Chetan Bhagat, the author of the book Five-point someone and the movie’s lead actor Amir Khan, film producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani.
The controversy about the credit stealing sparked based on Chetan Bhagat’s blog post, which contained the statement “Pre-release, the makers made press statements like the movie is ‘very loosely’, or 2-5% inspired by the book”. Also, he seemed to suggest that the movie has almost 70% material taken from the book. This claim was supported by big names like Shashi Tharoor, Veer Sanghvi alongwith various other journalists and fans. Chetan Bhagat also went on to comment that he had put blind faith in the Production unit of 3-Idiots and now he felt back-stabbed since the movie gives the credit for the story-line to script-writer Abhijat Joshi and director Rajkumar Hirani, while he just got a small mention at the end of the movie.
On the other hand, the 3-Idiots representatives, i.e. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Amir Khan jumped into the fray trying to defend their stand. Vidhu Vinod Chopra almost shouted at the Journalists in Noida that he had read the book and it wasn’t a copy from the book. Amir on his part denied the claim that the movie wasn’t based 70% on the book (without he himself having read the book), and criticized Bhagat’s being “publicity-hungry”, since the movie had become a HUGE HIT. Amir Khan went on to suggest that the Vidhu Vinod Chopra Production House already possesses the rights of the book and there was already an agreement that was reached between Chetan Bhagat and the Production House regarding the rights and the credit-sharing. Amir Khan also charged Chetan Bhagat with trying to take credit away from the 3-Idiots team for coming up with a fabulous adaptation to his book, and that was not expected from a writer of his stature. Finally, Chetan Bhagat stood his ground, trying to defend his stand, with interviews, where he shows similarities in the movie and the book one-by-one. Since Chetan Bhagat was not allowed to see the movie before it hits the screens, he couldn’t object earlier. On the other hand, Vidhu Vinod Chopra closed the topic saying that since they bought the “rights” of the book, it was at their discretion, whether they wanted to copy 5% or 70%.
The Indian Media in its own sense has also added a lot of fuel to the fire and made this a big issue. Also, some of the statements are shown with a bias, which will not resolve the issue easily. All in all, the row is bound to keep going on, at least for sometime now.
Final Verdict:
We are bound to see more fights on this, may or may not be legal, but credits are something everyone involved here is craving for. On a personal note, I realize how painful it feels if you first read the book, then see the movie and check for the kind of credits given to Chetan Bhagat; you will feel saddened.
Nevertheless, I believe, either good or bad, publicity is publicity, and it will help both the movie and the book. But a row about such a nice book and a very refreshing movie does tend to show that for such a fight between the “3-Idiots” Chetan Bhagat, Amir Khan and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, my personal rating on a scale of 10 would be “Five-Point-Someone”, I mean “Five-Point-Something”.
Posts
