Movie Review: Sona Spa

Director: Makrand Deshpande

The Indian Express rating: *

Some films go so rapidly from oh-my-god-can-this-really-be-true to such sublime awfulness that you are left transfixed. Sona Spa opens with a beatific-of-face, sonorous-of-voice Naseer telling us how humankind's most prized possession is sleep, and then propels us towards a 'spa' where girls 'do not sleep with you, but for you'. We are then introduced to a bunch of women who lie around in beds, attired in togas, in various stages of sleep-dream cycles, and then the film unleashes itself upon you.

Amongst its chief attractions is a lecher who is triple-timing his wife, and whose idea of getting rid of troublesome mistresses is to off them, one by one. Then there is a businessman who goes to dance bars and drinks, and slaps his daughter when she tries to stop him. There is also a poor soul who is in a coma, surrounded by sobbing daughters. And a cop on the take ( who also, if I caught that right, pretends to be a TV reporter). These sleep-deprived characters all have 'sleepers', with whom they 'bond', caressing each others' faces. No, I'm not having you on.

These are the 'sleepers': a former hooker with a Lucknawi andaaz, who is to be seen wearing flowing shararas , a jeans-clad, frizzy-haired loud-mouth, and a 'good' middle-class girl in a 'salwaar kameez'. The idea looks like it's been lifted from a sci fi book I read some years ago,

... contd.