Ishkq in Paris

Ishkq in Paris
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Prem Raj
Produced by	Preity Zinta Neelu Zinta
Written by	Prem Raj Preity Zinta
Starring	Preity Zinta Rhehan Malliek Isabelle Adjani
Music by	Sajid-Wajid
Cinematography	Manush Nandan
Edited by	Rameshwar S Bhagat Mahendra Mishra
Production company	PZNZ Media
Distributed by	T-Series
Release dates	24 May 2013 (2013-05-24)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi French English
Budget	₹120-150 million (estimated)
Box office	₹21.3 million (worldwide)[1][2][3]

Ishkq in Paris is a primarily Hindi-language Indian film starring Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek and French actress Isabelle Adjani, directed by Prem Raj,^[4] produced by Preity Zinta and co-written by Raj and Zinta. After being initially set for 21 September 2012, the film was postponed multiple times before finally being released on 24 May 2013^[5] in India, the United Kingdom and the United States.^[2] Koi Moi stated the film failed to attract an initial audience, did not get any word of mouth publicity and was unable to compete for audience against the Indian Premier League cricket finals held its opening weekend.^[6]

Cast

• Preity Zinta as Ishkq
• Rhehan Malliek as Akash
• Isabelle Adjani
• Mala Sinha
• Shekhar Kapur
• Chunky Pandey

Production

The film marks a comeback for Preity Zinta, once one of Bollywood's most sought after actresses, who hadn't appeared on the big screen since a cameo in 2009's Main Aurr Mrs Khanna and whose last lead role in a mainstream Bollywood film was 2007's Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

Filming

The film was shot mainly across France, in Paris and Lyon, with some scenes shot in Prague as well as India.

Soundtrack

Music director duo Sajid-Wajid composed the songs for Ishkq in Paris. The soundtrack release date was announced on 15 September via Zinta's Twitter account. The songs are penned by Jalees Sherwani, Prasoon Joshi, Kumaar, Kausar Munir, Sophie Choudry and Priya Panchal.

Reception

Box office performance

The film , collecting 4.2 million Rupees with an occupancy of "just 5 to 10 percent in multiplexes across the country".^[7] Comparatively, the new release that took the top place, Fast & Furious 6, collected 60 million Rupees on its first day.^[8] Despite being its opening weekend's second highest-grossing Hindi film, and third highest-grossing overall^[1] according to the International Business Times, the film "opened on such a bad note that it would require some miracle to come out with a decent number during the weekend",^[9] and in fact Ishkq in Paris only managed to collect a little over 10 million Rupees over the three day period, and has been labeled a disaster.

Internationally, the film was released simultaneously on 15 screens in the United Kingdom and 8 screens in the United States where it also received a tepid response, garnering merely £11,057 and $6,732 respectively during the opening weekend, far less than the lower-profile Punjabi-language film Jatts In Golmaal, which opened on the same day.^[2] All-in-all, in its first week, Ishkq in Paris barely crossed the 20 million Rupee mark worldwide.^[3]

Critical response

Writing for Sify Movies, Sonia Chopra gave the film an extremely positive review, praising the entirety of the cast, the cinematography and the dialogues and labelling it "great" and "irresistible, despite its flaws",.^[10]

Rachit Gupta of Filmfare gave the film 3/5 stars but did not have many positive things to say, calling the film a "flaky and uninteresting love story".^[11] Divya Solgama gave the film 2.25/5 stars on MoviezAdda, calling the film decent "overall", praising Preity Zinta's performance and criticizing the weak, dull screenplay. Similarly, in The Times of India, Meena Iyer gave 2.5/5 stars, stating "the actress is good but there ends the show",^[12] while Gaurav Malani called the film not "bad", but "boring", which to him was worse.^[13] In Bollywood Hungama, Taran Adarsh gave it the same rating, praising the chemistry between the two leads as well as the visuals, but criticizing the screenplay, concluding that Ishkq In Paris was "decent fare".^[14] Writing for India Today, Vinayak Chakravorty found that despite similarities with other films, it managed to find some originality and that Isabelle Adjani's performance was impressive, but was disappointed by the direction, the lack of chemistry between the leads, Rhehan Malliek's lack of screen presence, the fact that Preity Zinta's performance is similar to many other roles she's done before and deemed the script "bad".^[15] while similarly in Mint, Nandini Ramnath concluded that "if the movie works at all", it was because of the short runtime and Preity Zinta's "contagious joy at being the cynosure of attention".^[16] In The Asian Age, Suparna Sharma commended Zinta for producing the film herself and appreciated the short runtime but also found the story to be "wispy thin", Malliek to have "no personality" and Adjani to be "wasted"^[17]

Raja Sen for Rediff.com has given 1/5 stars and says Ishkq In Paris is a bad film brought further down by a bunch of Bollywood cliches and a fading Preity Zinta,^[18] which is the same rating given by Mayank Shekhar in the Daily Bhaskar, who goes on to call the lead characters "uninteresting" and lament the state of Preity Zinta's career. Strangely enough, Shekhar incorrectly claims that Zinta plays two roles in the film, that of Ishkq and Ishkq's mother.^[19] in.com gave the film a poor review too, criticizing the weak screenplay and Preity's performance.^[20] In a special "Twitter review" for IBN, Shomini Sen deemed that though "Preity Zinta tries hard [...], except for some amazing shots of Paris [the film] has nothing much to offer.",^[21] while in another, more traditional review, Rajeev Masand called the film "misguided" and "overwrought", in addition to finding Rhehan Malliek "as expressive as a slab of granite".^[22] In Koimoi, Mohar Basu gave the film 2/5 stars, praising the editing but criticizing the screenplay and the lack of chemistry between the leads.^[23] while India TV News felt that Preity Zinta's screen presence is the only reason to watch the film despite the "decent" cinematography and "crisp" editing, as Rhehan Malliek is "unconvincing" and the music "unmemorable".^[24] Teena Elizabeth Chacko, writing in Book My Show, found the cinematography "excellent" as well as the narration by Isabelle Adjani, deemed the performances by Zinta and Malliek to be decent and the music average, but found fault with the multitude of clichés, the cheesy dialogues and the numerous illogical moments, giving the film 1.5/5 stars and stating that one could "definitely afford to miss it",^[25] while in The Indian Express, Shubhra Gupta gave it 2/5 stars, lamenting that it was filled with "all the clichés that you can think of".^[26] Glam Sham's Enkayaar criticized the screenplay,^[27] as did Shubha Shetty-Saha in Mid Day, who went on to call Adjani "wasted", Malliek "flat" and felt that Preity Zinta looked desperate to recapture her lost success, deeming the film "disappointing".^[28] In the Hindustan Times, Sarit Ray thought the film felt dated though he did enjoy the cinematography^[29] and in The Hindu, Sudhish Kamath gave the film one of its worst reviews, calling the writing "weak" and the actors "awful", warning potential viewers that going to see the film might leave them "feeling suicidal".^[30] For the Mumbai Mirror, Karan Anshuman thought the movie was "without heart", the actors had no chemistry and felt sorry for the state of Preity Zinta's career, encouraging her to "be bold" and "change the act",^[31] similarly in Daily News and Analysis, Tushar Joshi felt that the actress seemed "in a constant need for approval", advising only her die-hard fans to go watch the film.^[32] The Deccan Herald, Shilpa Jamkhandikar called the film "mediocre", a "farce of a film" and Preity Zinta "a shadow of her past [self]",^[33] while Khalid Mohamed wrote in the Deccan Chronicle that the screenplay was "thinner than crepe".^[34] For First Post, Deepanjana Pal deemed the film completely illogical,^[35] in Business of Cinema, Udita Jhunjhunwala claimed that despite its short runtime "Ishkq in Paris feels like a nine-hour flight, with jet lag"^[36] and Box Office India thought the cinematography was "outstanding", Zinta's performance was "noteworthy" and the background music "superb", but concluded that director Prem Raj "impresses a little but disappoints a lot", predicting a flop.^[37] For The New Indian Express, Nandini Krishnan called Preity Zinta "irritating" and the film "an insult to cinema, Paris, love and Isabelle Adjani"^[38] and in the Pakistani The Friday Times, Nandini Krishnan was "appalled" by the film, calling it "disastrous" and making fun of "the almost 40-year-old Zinta [...] trying to pass off as the still-beautiful Adjani's daughter", saying it "gave [her her] first laugh of the film".^[39] Similarly in Outlook, Namrata Joshi was saddened by Zinta's plastic surgery-altered looks, thought she lacked chemistry with her co-star and called the narration tedious.^[40]

References

External links

• Ishkq in Paris at the Internet Movie Database
• Ishkq In Paris at Bollywoodhungama.com