Quotes of the Day

It was Friday night, and the big theater was jammed with Indian fans awaiting the premiere of the new year's big movie. Bollywood princess Aishwarya Rai was greeted with a bouquet of roses from a city official and audience cries of "We love you, Ash!" Abhishek Bachchan, a rising actor and son of Indian film legend Amitabh Bachchan, enters to girlish squeals not heard since Hrithik Roshan last went topless in public. Mani Ratnam, who is internationally the most revered writer-director of Indian films, said a few words. Composer A R Rahman, whose hundred or so film scores have made him arguably the world's all-time top-selling recording artist, appeared but remained silent. The house lights dimmed and Guru began.

A ritzy premiere such as this would typically take place in Mumbai (Bombay) or in Ratnam's home town Chennai (Madras). But Bollywood films have eyes to be as popular in America as in India, Indonesia, the Middle East and North Africa, where they dominate cinematic culture. So the principals of Guru had come 7,800 miles to the Empire 25 theater just off Times Square in New York City to flack their film this weekend. (They'd been in Toronto the evening before.) Then Abhishek and Ash flew back to India, where, in a flourish that Brad and Angelina might take tips from, they announced their engagement.

Since I had put Ratnam's Nayakan on the all-TIME 100 Movies list, and cited the Rahman score for Ratnam's Roja as one of my five favorite soundtracks, it seemed a small favor in return to take a 10min. subway ride to see their new film. It was worth the trip — mine, if not theirs.

In the hermetically sealed fantasy world that most Indian films inhabit, Ratnam's movies often flirt with incendiary political issues: a terrorist kidnapping in Roja; the 1992-93 Hindi-Muslim riots in Bombay; the rivalry of Tamil actor-statesman M.G. Ramachandran (known as MGR) and screenwriter-statesman M. Karunanidhi (MK) in Iruvar; more terrorism in Del Se; the Sri Lankan war in Kannathil Muthamittal. He is also fascinated with powerful figures in the Mumbai Mafia. Nayakan attached the structure of The Godfather to the career of gang lord Varadarajan Mudaliar, and Ratnam revisited the underworld in Agni Nakshatram and Thalapathi.

Guru is another fictionalized bio-pic, this time taking inspiration from the career of Indian business executive Dhirajlal Ambani. Known as Dhirubhai, Ambani rose from rural nobody to towering tycoon without the usual benefits of family wealth, education or connection. He was the founder and chairman of Reliance Industries, manufacturer of the polyester that clothed India (and in the 70s lent its kitchy style to tight-pantsed Bollywood actors like Amitabh). By Dhirubhai's death in 2002, Reliance was India's largest corporation, a leader in petrochemicals and a dozen other interests and the largest corporation. A Times of India poll in 2000 chose him as Greatest Creator of Wealth in the Century.

Guru's hero, played by Abhishek, is named Gurukant Desai, and Ratnam has insisted that any similarities are coincidental: "The film is purely fictional and could be based on anyone's life." Sure, and Citizen Kane wasn't inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst. Guru's plot frequently references Dhirubhai's life story. And unlike Kane, this movie dispenses with the muckraking for hagiography. The Ambani estate is protective of its founder's legacy, but at least two members of the family gave their blessing to Guru's stars: Dhirubahi's son Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Capital, attended the Ash-Abhishek engagement party with his wife, the former Bollywood actress Tina Munim.

Here's the basic story... Born in Gujurat, the son of a school teacher, Desai goes abroad as a teenager (heading for Istanbul, not Aden, where Dhirubhai landed) to learn business. He returns a decade later to start a textile company, in partnership with a more cautious cousin who later leaves in a dispute over our hero's risky ways. He switches from cotton to polyester and makes his fortune, creating India's biggest company, in part by encouraging the rising middle class to invest in it (tens of thousands flock to his shareholder meetings). He suffers a stroke that paralyzes his right hand, but his drive is unimpaired, his success unimpeded.

The film begins in the 90s, with the aged Gurukant in an empty stadium recalling his stern father's lack of faith in him. "'Don't dream. Dreams never come true,' my father would say. But I dreamt." (This is a paraphrase of Dhirubhai's maxim, "Only when you dream it can you do it," not to mention The Rocky Horror Show's "Don't dream it, be it.") We flash back to Gurukant's youth in a Gujurat village, then follow the mogul's progress, with some Bollywood embellishments: his marriage to Sujatha (Rai) — at first for her $25,000 dowry, then for love — and his fraternal devotion to a feisty crippled girl, Meenu (Vidya Balan), who will grow up to marry Shyam (Madhavan), the very muckraking reporter who's determined to bring Gurukant down.

In his 2hr.46min. film Ratnam lays out the story with cool assurance, making room for five Rahman songs, all worth further hearings. (I can't stop humming the wedding song, and don't want to.) Dance numbers aren't crucial to a Ratnam movie, but there are a few here anyway. Ash's big number is a compendium of Bollywood visual tropes (no, let's be honest and say cliches): she dances in the rain, through a temple, by a waterfall, moving with more energy than rhythm and getting whiplashed by her pigtail. Much more satisfying is an early turn in an Istanbul night club by Bollywood bombshell Mallika Sherawat. For her writhing, shimmying moment in the spotlight (she's out of the picture before the opening credits), Sherawat brings a visceral enlightenment to Guru in a dance number where she really gets to shake her bodhi.

To me, Ash's film eminence remains a mystery. No question she's pretty, but she's more an actress-model than a model actress. In Guru she's mainly ornamentation. For most of the film, Gurukant's and Sujatha's marriage is a montage of goodbyes (as he dashes off to cinch another deal) and hellos (as he returns in triumph or in peril). Their relationship has plenty of affection — "You shine as beautifully as polyester," he tells her fondly — but not much heat. Curiously, the movie's most intense, honest physical emotion is between Madhavan and Balan. Their kiss when he proposes to her carries a sock that's missing in the Ash-Abhishek scenes.

Abhishek, though, has the grit and charm to bring Gurukant to life. Just 30, he plays the character from his early 20s to his 60s and is persuasive for most of that span, though I wouldn't have minded if his dad had taken over in the later scenes. (Amitabh wouldn't agree. He said recently: "My father [the poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan] wrote in his biography, ‘When a father loses to his son, it is his greatest victory!' I've lost to my son! And I'm the happiest father alive!") Early in the film, Abhishek uses his dimples to underline the notion of innocent ambition. As the character ages, Abhishek's playing shades toward Hollywood models: from Godfather Pacino to Godfather Brando. He hasn't quite the capacity for leonine rage those two stars (and Amitabh) can summon, but he does an excellent job.

But then Gurukant is a simpler character than your average Corleone. The old Ratnam movies found ambiguous shades among the shadows of those gangsters and politicians. Gurukant is a hero of the people, a striver from the unprivileged classes, and gets automatic points for his vaulting ambition ("That's my problem, I can't hear the word 'no'"), for wanting to show the old-money crowd how new big money can be made. "Why should I work for that white man?" he says in Turkey. "I'll work for myself." It doesn't matter that he lacks the leisure skills of the brahmins; he has no leisure time. "I don't know how to play golf, but I'm a solid player in my business."

Ratnam skews the argument in Gurukant's favor by making the charges against him ("He converts nonconvertible debentures") too obscure to rouse audience's censure. The real Dhirubhai was the most famous Gujurati after Gandhi, and the film allows Gurukant to compare himself to the Mahatama.

For movies to celebrate an entrepreneur is rare — usually you get exposés — but not wrong. Guru's nearest equivalent might be It's a Wonderful Life, except that this small businessman has to cope with success, not failure. And there's no denying the dramatic oomph of the climactic courtroom scene, with Gurukant defending himself and the class he stands for. Still, it doesn't seem like a natural weave for Mani Ratnam. This Guru is more like a fine polyester.

• Richard Corliss
• Abhishek and Ash glamorize Mani Ratnam's new drama about an upstart Indian tycoon