Quest is a boring saga

In director Amol Palekar's English film "Quest" which also releases at cinemas this weekend, a woman finds her life turned upside down, when she comes home one day to discover that her husband of eleven years, the father of their eight-year-old son, is involved in a homosexual relationship with another man. Still grappling to come to terms with his real identity, the husband claims he loves them both, and urges the wife to go on behaving like nothing's happened. The woman in question, meanwhile, is no helpless housewife living off her husband's income.

In fact, she's a reputed advocate, a woman of the world. But she's shattered by the discovery, disturbed primarily because she's been betrayed. Although it becomes evident right off the bat that this film is not so much about homosexuality as it is this woman's story, you still can't help feeling disappointed about the half-hearted manner in which the whole homosexual angle has been dealt with. Wouldn't it have been a braver film if the gay couple had stayed together after the wife decides to separate from her husband? Or do we have to still wait a few more years before Indian filmmakers are ready to stick their necks out that far?

Either way, that's not my biggest problem with this film. What is most disheartening is the manner in which all three protagonists are reduced to mere stereotypes. It's sad that the very film that asks of its audience to be tolerant and to welcome diversity, is ultimately guilty of the same crime.

Now it may be a well-intended effort, but "Quest" fails on virtually all counts because it comes off looking so pretentious. So forget feeling any empathy towards its three leads, what you really want to do is to shake them up and tell them to stop wallowing in self-pity and to take some important decisions. I also can't make out what the film's trying to suggest by telling us that had the wife looked a little closer, she'd have noticed all the signs - if she's meant to beat herself up for not finding the signs, then that's even more ridiculous. Of course,

I know that for every criticism I bring up there is the argument that such case studies do exist. I know that people like this are all around us. I know that there are wives who're forced to accept their husbands' bisexuality. I know that there are men who lead these double lives without a thought for their wives, their lovers or their kids. And I also know that this may have been a far richer film had it touched upon those issues instead of boring us to death with the self-indulgence of this film's leading lady and her quest to do the right thing.

What ultimately nails the fate of this film is its stilted script - particularly the dialogue which makes you cringe because its so laboured where it should have been so conversational. "How are you Sai?" one character asks the film's leading lady, to which she replies exasperatedly, "Life has ripped off my rose coloured glasses." It's lines like this that appear throughout the film that make you shift uncomfortably in your seat. It's unfair to criticize the cast for sounding like a bunch of class eight students participating in an elocution competition because they're only mouthing lines they have been asked to read. And if none of the actors fail to rise above the script, perhaps you'll understand how constricting the central premise is.

In the end, what could have been an interesting film about complexed relationships turns out to be a dull and boring saga about an indecisive woman. So, then that's one out of five and a thumbs down for director Amol Palekar's "Quest", a film that does little for the cause that it claims to shed light on, and a film that fails to entertain either. I'm going to go so far as to say that the director's last film "Paheli" was far more entertaining than this. And that should give you a good idea of what a dull affair this film is!

Rajeev Masand