Saw Devdas on Sunday. This is probably the seventh or eighth of a long line of adaptations of one of India’s most enduring tragic heroes, and the first ‘musical’ to boot. Bottom line: this doesn’t come close to either the 1936 Sehgal or the 1955 Dilip Kumar version. That said, it has a number of things going for it, and I’d say watch the movie if you can. Quick notes:

• Eye Candy. Strongest point of the film. Gorgeous sets; art director Nitin Desai will safely take a Filmfare award home.
• The background score was promising but disappointed, it started well but was too monotonous, and was a bit too loud and overbearing in parts.
• Not-so-good group dancing. Somebody should have picked the extras with greater care; the dances of quite a few wouldn’t have been out of place in a typical Bollywood jhatka number.
• Madhuri was good. Have to say that even though I’m not a Madhuri fan.
• Ash tried, and was good in parts. But dancing is not her forte — yet.
• Shahrukh — good in parts. But he has to lose his mannerisms before the actor comes out of the star persona. As a SRK fan, I was disappointed.
• Atrocious Bengali. After spending crores on the sets, you’d think they could hire one diction tutor. Or at least excise all the Bengali lines out of the script. I know Bengali and this one point basically ruined the film for me.
• The original novel on which this is based has a great deal on life and politics of 19th/late 20th century Bengal. The film glossed over most of that. Read the novel (or a translation) — it’s good.
• For a musical, the music was strangely .. forgettable. Nothing worth coming out of the theater with. In fact, the dance remained in my memory for longer.
• Kiron Kher gets a thumbs up for her role as Paro’s mum. Smita Jayekar as Devdas’ get a thumbs down — ‘thakurains’ are made of sterner stuff, or should be. In fact, Ash as the newly wed thakurain looked more convincing than she.