When Kiran Met Karen

When Kiran Met Karen

 

Despite the world moving on in general with the acceptance of gay love, whether homosexual or lesbian, there are still people that just cannot accept that two people of the same sex can love each other.    Prejudice has always reared its head amongst individual people and people influence organisations and fields of work.  One such place where homophobia is said to still exist, according to this film at least, is Bollywood and When Kiran Met Karen is an attempt to address this issue. 

Kiran (Chriselle Almeida) is an upcoming Bollywood actress whose career is on the rise with the international release of her new film 'A Himalayan Love Story' and married to Bollywood composer extraordinaire Dev Ghosh (Samrat Chakrabarti).  As usual though, it's not quite as simple as that, as her US press conference proves when attending journalists question her about her affair with a co-star and a restraining order placed on her. 



Fleeing from the baying journalists, Kiran finds herself forced to share a taxi with Karen (Kelli Holsopple), who soon reveals herself to be a journalist with Reel Women magazine.  Despite Kiran's reservations, she finds herself accepting Karen's business card and contemplating an interview, prior to snorting coke with her fiancé and getting down to some business in the swimming pool.  The following morning, all alone and full of self-loathing, Kiran decides to take a chance and call Karen… 

Well, where to start on this quite frankly awful film?  The script and direction are awful, with some rather pitiful editing.  The film appear to be shot completely hand-held with steadicam and there are long shots that really should either have been cut completely or shortened dramatically.  Better editing would have seen less camera wobble and better angles rather than the over movement displayed.  The sound design is amateurish at best with the sound seeming to be incredibly harsh, thin and full of echo.  Bizarrely as well, we have to put up with some equally strange special effects with undulating purple clouds to simulate the effects of snorting cocaine.  



You could maybe look beyond all that though of the story was ok and the performances matched.  Sadly both disappoint.  As the film progresses none of the three main characters create any kind of empathy for the viewer with only the act of Sapphic love attempting to elicit any kind of sympathy.  As the lead actress, Almeida should take the viewer on a journey of change but ultimately fails as she is still ultimately the same arrogant, moody and spoiled brat she was at the start of the film.  Chakrabbarti and Holsopple's performances are naïve to say the least, and despite the fact that both are slightly more subtle in their approaches than Almeida, they simply can't do anything about the poor script and are therefore rather flat. 

As to the story, well it doesn't really follow a fixed line or is consistent with itself.  Supposedly important parts of this story are the flashbacks that fill in the background on both Kiran and then her relationship with Ghosh.  Some of these flashbacks are short, one is incredibly long, and some are with bleached picture and some in full colour.  It just causes disjoint in the narrative and frankly you simply don't care about the story other than hoping the ending will come along soon.  When it does, it's frankly rather forced and unbelievable. 



Anyone looking for a realistic lesbian love story will be disappointed with this attempt, especially as it plonks a heterosexual sex scene about a third of the running time in - which I'm guessing that the demographic aimed at won't appreciate much.  This film comes with the promise of exploring the homophobic world of Bollywood but actually doesn't really address it at all other than in a rather superficial manner, and therefore is unlikely to change anything or find an audience within the lesbian community.  Oh well…