Director Rosshan Andrrews had, in pre-release interviews, mentioned that he wanted to send out the message that 'children should grow up with their families and not in boarding schools'. It would seem that in his zealousness to use his new film Notebook to convey this message, he loses his audience.

The story of three girls and their misadventures in the boarding school named Lord's Academy in Ooty is superficial. The superficiality may have been used intentionally, to distance the happenings on screen from the normal folk, because only children of very rich parents, and children from broken homes go to residential schools (at least, that is what we are made to believe).

These three girls skip a midnight New Year's prayer to plant a sapling in the vicinity of the school as a symbol of their friendship. They address each other with the affectionate 'Da' (they are hep, you see), and one of them is modern enough to ask a guy to get her a pack of sanitary napkins, when a friend has an emergency situation.

The film uses such set pieces to showcase the friendship and provide each of the girls their distinctive character traits, all of which has to power the story in the latter half. Thus, one girl is angelic at the best of times, but when risk and danger loom, she becomes selfish. Another is timid, but can kick over the traces when opportunity affords.

The screenplay, credited to Bobby and Sanjay, does not however make us emotionally involved with the girls; we are told their story, but never invited into their world. Thus, empathy is missing; when the timid one reveals that she may be pregnant after a fling with her boyfriend during the school excursion, we are indifferent to her fate.

The single biggest handicap this film suffers from is the fact that none of the characters are real, believable; in fact, on many occasions, the actions of the characters are uncharacteristically insensitive, as for instance the way the principal deals with a boy who climbs the clock tower threatening to commit suicide.

The bright spot is that the bunch of newcomers put in some exuberance into the otherwise turgid film; especially Roma, who has charming screen presence. The appearance of Suresh Gopi [Images] as her father, towards the end of the film, gives a bit of a fillip to proceedings, but even he cannot salvage the film beyond a point.

Bottomline, Rosshan Andrrews may have the best of intentions, but in Notebook, he fails to translate them onto the screen.

Rediff Rating: