Frankly, it's no fun to know much about a movie before you enter the cinema hall. Prejudices form, predictability seeps in, things like that, you know?

Unfortunately, nine times out of ten, I always know what the subject is, what the highlight is, who is going to die, who will survive, the surprise ending, the formidable twist. But in the case of Shona Urvashi's Chupke Se... I was surprisingly ignorant.

Anyway, here's the real question: how's the film? If I had to give a regular reply, I'd say, 'Yeah okay, ho-hum types'. But that's rather vague, I concede. So here's the real thing:

Chupke Se...'s heroine Masumi Makhija is talented and confident. But somehow her transition from a girl next door to a beauty princess is not earth-shattering. In fact, there is no real transformation.

Shona Urvashi's directorial debut is loosely inspired from the Hollywood flick Drop Dead Gorgeous (Kirstie Alley, Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards), which was a dark spoof on beauty pageants. Only Chupke Se... oscillates between a Mills & Boon romance and Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Masumi's co-star Zulfikar Syed plays the virtuous hunk-cum-business tycoon-cum-loner-cum-charmer with zeal, but lacks big screen charisma.

Om Puri, too, features, in this pale romance that has him mouthing inanities in the form of shayari -- a deliberate ploy passed off as comedy. Sorry, Purisaab, but it doesn't work!

Which is what I can say about the film as well.

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