Friendship is like a pair of old jeans – the older it gets, the better it becomes – this is the belief that Purani Jeans is based on.
Purani Jeans centres around Siddarth Ray (Tanuj Virwani) who learns this belief as he journeys from New York back to his hometown Kasauli, a small hill station in India, after 12 long years. The main hook of the film is friendship. Those unforgettable memories of old friends – somewhat similar to Rock On and Dil Chahta Hai, yet it appears fresh, courtesy the young, bubbly cast of this friendship flick.
The film unfolds as a coming-of-age drama about a summer when Sidharth, his best friend Sam (Aditya Seal) and their gang of friends experience the agony & ecstasy of growing up, forming bonds of friendship, trust, jealousy, joy, envy & love.
Though a bit unrealistic that the guy comes after 12 years from the US, to wind up everything in his hometown, that he becomes so eager to trace all and each of his friends of the Kasauli Cowboys times. It is emphatically shown right at the start that Sid is the loner, very business-minded type, has a negative attitude towards any strangers who approach him (poor lady who happens to go thru his diary and offers to publish a book). In his 12 years abroad, he hasn’t kept in touch with any of his friends, and doesn’t want to do either.
Eventually Sidharth rediscovers his old friends, and makes peace with his estranged best friend Sam. As the story ends, Sidharth reconciles with his past, and returns to New York with a renewed belief that friendship is indeed like Purani Jeans – the older the better, just like Sam used to say…
Narrated in back and forth style, its shown that sometime in the 90s, Sidharth is a typical small-town, introverted, studious middle-class boy – the poet of the group. He lives with his mother (Rati Agnihotri) who is a nursery school teacher. He dreams of studying engineering at MIT or Harvard. He is a bit of a daydreamer. Since his mom is widowed, he is mature and responsible for his age. He’s shy but also charming in a quiet way to girls. His best friend since nursery is Sam.
Sam is a cool and confident guy hailing from the royal family of Himachal. He lives in a mansion and drives open jeeps through Kasauli. A cool dude, ladies man, also knows how to take care of his guy friends. Every year his friends wait for him with bated breath.
Nayantara (Izabelle Leite) is a new girl in Kasauli who has moved there from Bombay. All the Kasauli cowboys are fascinated by her, especially Sam and Sid. She wants to study architecture and loves the mountain air of Kausali. She wants to make new friends in town and dotes over her younger sister Ayesha.
A dull love triangle, (often seen in endless Bollywood flicks), though Nayantara could have made it clear to Sam about her love for Sid right when he displays his forearm with her name scratched on it, and then she insists that Sid tells his best friend Sam about their relationship, but he is unable to tell him on not one, but several occasions. Here again its too filmy.
Besides these flaws, Purani Jeans is a film to watch about the friendship of the Kasauli guys, trust, jealousy, joy, envy and love while also dealing with problems of distant parents, broken hearts and pressures of growing up, gradually leading everyone to go their own way.
It has some wonderful songs in its soundtrack -‘Yaari Yaari’, Dil Aaj Kal and Yeh Beetey Din to name a few.
For enlarged pics, click on the Thumbnails:
Cast:
Tanuj Virwani as Sidharth Ray “Sid”
Aditya Seal as Samuel Joseph Lawrence “Sam”
Izabelle Leite as Nayantara
Param Baidwaan as Balwinder Singh “Bobby”
Raghav Raj Kakker as Susheel Sharma
Kashyap kapoor as Tejinder Singh Kathuria ”
Sarika as Sherry Joseph (Sam’s Mother)
Rati Agnihotri as Siddarth’s Mother
Manoj Pahwa
Rajit Kapur
Raghav Kakkar
Kashyap Kapoor
Kashika Chopra
Credits:
Banner – Eros International
Producer – Manju Lulla
Director – Tanushri Chattrji Bassu
Executive Producer – Sanjay Mehta
Story by Tanushri Chattrji Bassu
Background Music – Ram Sampath
Choreographer – Firoz Khan
Music Director – Ram Sampath
Lyrics – Ashish Pandit, Prashant Ingole, Munna Dhiman, Kunwar Juneja
Editor – Apurva Motiwale, Ashish Mhatre
Cinematography – Sunil Patel
Production Designers – Durga Prasad Mahapatra,Abhishek Redkar