KARACHI: Tragedies are tragedies because
they break away from the stasis of complete
satisfaction and equilibrium. Unreal happiness
and complete stability set the stage for chaos so
unsettling that a king in search of a curse and a
sister fighting for her brother’s final rites both
may end up on an unimaginably dark path. It is
sad because the darkness wasn’t necessary; it is
maddening because destiny was a result of their
own choices.
Far from a tragedy, theatre veteran and TV
genius Ehtheshamuddin’s debut film Superstar
is not serious and deep enough to be called a
drama; it is a melodrama by choosing which
Mahira’s so far adventurous film career has
turned into a tragedy.
Nine years is a long time to find your space on
the big screen and yet Mahira’s filmdom has
been marred by one terrible script choice after
another. She has been choosing half-baked
scripts so surgically and for so long that all
these mistakes now look like carefully crafted
decisions, not unlucky outings. Superstar is not
any different.
She plays a struggling actor (Noori) from bhaaati
gate who runs into her crush and superstar
(Sameer Khan) during the shoot of a TV advert.
Despite the obvious class difference, they manage
to strike chemistry and fall for each other.
The story then revolves around the stark realities
of the present day film industry and tries to
explore the struggle of being a superstar against
the struggle of being an actor in the background
of the current socio-political environment.
By playing an actor on screen Mahira naturally
gets to play a lot of characters within one
character and that’s amazing. The small bits and
pieces of Noori’s reel life, particularly the ones
towards the second half are good enough to
prove that Bin Roye star has evolved as an actor
but at the end of the day, Noori doesn’t stay with
you longer than those moments.
