On paper, Bin Roye has a lot going for it. It is the first in-house Hum TV production – the group who won hearts in and across Pakistan (and abroad) with their television serials Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai. It features Mahira Khan and Humayun Saeed in lead
Mostly, it’s a film that is about human beings, relationships, love and it sells itself. There’s no complicated terror dwellings and it’s not self-important, at least on paper.
We meet the film’s star-pair, Irtiza (Humayun Saeed) and Saba (Mahira Khan) on the night before Eid, or Chand Raat. He takes her shopping; they flirt, buy bangles, dance a little, and flirt some more. You think they’re a married couple with the way they speak to one another, or, at minimum, a couple in love, but, alas, they are just cousins. At least one of them harbours love for the other. I suppose it’s an accurate depiction of Pakistani society norms, marrying your cousins.
Mahira’s Saba is beautiful, looks lovely and is desperately in love. Humayun’s Irtiza is a
A tragic accident ensues and flips the story on its head. Who loves whom?
The Problem
It’s an uninteresting, hackneyed plot. Unrequited love maybe a theme in this film but its execution is monotonous. The dialogues border on regressive, inciting moral clichés; as a family drama, it’s typical in the sense that it’s tragic and drags on. These characters, Irtiza and Saba, have no passion or purpose in life and they do little else.
Actors like Zeba Bakhtiar and Javed Sheikh, who play Saba’s parents, are adequate.
Armeena Rana Khan’s Saman comes in and out of the film quickly and hardly registers. You can’t care about these characters because they don’t sound real. It looks make-belief.
Humayun Saeed isn’t given enough meaty material for him to really stand out. And that’s a great loss because there are moments in the film when he finds a spark but it’s not enough.
This family of love is based in Pakistan but what Pakistan is it remains unclear. I suppose
The Highpoint
Bin Roye is Mahira Khan’s film. Her character, while all girl next door and beautiful, has shades of grey. She’s jealous, she’s angry, she’s enraged, she’s guilty and she pulls it all off. Give Mahira a darker character and she revels in it, she exposes a layer and it’s hard to not root for.
Abida Parveen and Zeb Bangash’s ‘Maula Maula’ sounds richer on the big screen.
Adeel Hussain looks brilliant in his small cameo and pairs off with Mahira in ‘Balley Balley’ really well. Junaid Khan’s cameo is decent.
In the end, Bin Roye is a vehicle for Mahira and in that department, it excels.