Trust me, you don't want to see Jigyaasa: Woman On Top.
One does not really go for movies of this kind with too many expectations, but Jigyaasa surpasses all levels of disappointment.
Director Faisal Saif tries to make a satire about Bollywood's casting couch. And fails miserably.
Even if you enjoy skin flicks, this is not the movie to watch.
It is, at best, an amateurish attempt to pull off a Page 3 on a bold subject. There are elements of the casting couch, exploitation, and young women and men being lured into the glamour world, false promises, misleading hopes et al.
Even names of famous people have been used with distinct familiarisation. So we have a woman who makes movies starting with 'K', a filmmaker called Subhash Mehta etc.
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The film starts with the death of a young woman called Jigyaasa (Hrishita Bhatt). The media and industrywalas are waiting outside her home.
A journalist (Jaya Bhattacharya) covering the young actress' suicide decides to make a documentary on her.
Jaya meets Jigyaasa's mother Mrs Mathur (Varsha Usgaonkar).
It makes you laugh to see how easily she gets convinced to talk about the doings of her famous daughter -- after her death -- on television.
Why? To make young people aware how 'bad' Bollywood is; to keep young innocent women like her daughter at bay.
Is the director trying tell people to stay away from Bollywood because there are 'occupational hazards' to be overcome to enter filmdom and success?
The film then goes into flashback. A young Jigyaasa, wanting to make it big in Bollywood, gets her portfolio done by a famous photographer. When she says she is ready to compromise and work hard, he takes the cue and promises to introduce her to a filmmaker.
When the director tries to take her to bed, she refuses and goes home crying. Can you believe Hrishita can't even cry properly? Whatever happened to the girl who played Shah Rukh Khan's wife adequately in Asoka?
But Jigyaasa learns fast, sleeps with the director, becomes a top actress, and a star. But everything, it seems, comes with a price.
The other actors in the film -- Mukesh Tiwari, Milind Gunaji, Nassar Abdulla, Sudesh Berry, Anupam Shyam, Rakesh Bedi, Vikas Kalantri, Divya Dwivedi, Asif Khan, Saba Khan, Unnatee Chand and Afreen Sayed -- are terrible!
Kader Khan is the only good thing about the film. But he too is wasted.
The film tries to be realistic -- there is a female filmmaker (made to look like a television soap queen) asking for sexual favours from the heroine, an actor gifting his leading lady a flat and lots more.
But all this is done in bad taste.
The music, cinematography, editing, dialogues, script, sets, outfits and makeup are below average. But Indian Idol contestant Rahul Vaidya's song Saansein is fine.
Verdict: Don't bother with this film!
