The Zoya Factor, Review: Cricket superstitions, and bowling a ‘maiden’ over

It’s a romantic comedy about cricket, superstition and finding your soulmate after several heart-breaks. Strange bedfellows? Not if you know your cricket, appreciate the quirky beliefs of cricketers and can empathise with a woman who has been dumped several times, yet dreams of finding Mr. Right very soon. All three angles are developed substantially, yet something is missing. Perhaps, unlike all the one-day international (ODI) 50-50 over matches shown in the film, it needed a test match, with a fourth innings angle, to really round it off.

Born on the day that India won the cricket World Cup for ODIs, 25^th June 1983, Zoya Solanki (Sonam Kapoor Ahuja), lives with her father, Vijayendra Singh (Sanjay Kapoor), and brother, Zorawar Singh (Sikandar Kher). Her’s is an army family of Rajputs. Although her birth was on the auspicious day, as ShahRukh Khan’s voice-over informs us, she considers herself unlucky, and for good reason. Good-looking Zoya, a junior copywriter in an advertising agency, is constantly badgered at work by her boss, Monita (Koel Purie), who thinks she is clumsy and careless, and a string of boy-friends have dumped her, including her latest beau, a dentist, who finds nothing in common with her.

After a bizarre incident at a shooting with actor Anil Kapoor, for a TV commercial, she finds favour with Monita, who sends her on an assignment to SriLanka, to shoot advertising endorsements by the Indian cricketing team, which is playing a tournament there. In picturesque SriLanka, while indulging in her favourite hobby of bursting crackers, at her hotel, Zoya accidentally meets Nikhil Khoda (Dulquer Salmaan) the Indian team captain, who is a staunch believer of hard-work and dead against superstitions and lucky charms.

She cannot believe her luck, for she had been fantasising about Nikhil for a long time. Nikhil chides her for celebrating India’s defeat earlier in the day, to which Zoya responds by saying that her family has stacked-up fire-crackers for decades in anticipation for a World Cup Indian victory, and that her indulgence was just that, not a reaction to the Indian loss. As they meet again and again, in relation to the shooting for the ad campaign, there develops a chemistry between the two. A batsman, Nikhil literally bowls the maiden over.

In an even more bizarre string of events, Zoya ends up, becoming first the lucky charm of the Indian cricket team, and, later, the official mascot for the next ODI World Cup, with a pay-cheque Rs. 1 crore (10 million). This leads to friction between her and Nikhil, who is unable to reconcile his love for Zoya with her being appointed the mascot. But it suits the plans of the President of the Indian Board Cricket Control (IBCC) and his nephew, the dislodged captain of the team, Robin Rawal (Angad Bedi), who is desperate to get his post back. Zoya, blissfully unaware of the machinations of the dubious duo, becomes a God-woman, and once the team starts winning games against impossible odds, victories that are attributed to the Zoya factor.

Based on a ‘chick-lit’ book by Anuja Chauhan, a former advertising executive, published in 2008 (paperback edition followed in 2014), The Zoya Factor has been converted into a screenplay by Neha Rakesh Sharma and Pradhuman Singh. Singh has penned the dialogue too. Chauhan contributed to the screenplay and dialogue as well, she has said, but was not allowed on the set by the director. One of her novels, Those Pricey Thakur Girls, was adapted for TV, and dubbed ghastly—the adaptation, that is.

Zoya lives in an upper middle-class house and behaves as tight-fistedly as if she was barely lower middle class. The family seems to be doing nothing except watching cricket and drinking, with Zoya taking an occasional swig at a beer bottle. Vijayendra might have retired, but Zorawar? Should have been gainfully occupied. There are characters who remind you of real-life cricketers, even names sounding like amalgams. Like there is Zahid Pathan (Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan), Gagan Khoda played for India, while Shivi is thinly veiled for Yuvi, the pet-name by which Yuvraj Singh was addressed. He is made to look like Shikhar Dhawan, who is a current player, but depicted as a man who suffers from anger issues, though I wonder if the ploy of him cooling down after one look at his grand-mother’s picture, pasted behind his bat, had anything to do with Singh’s real-life anger management issues.

We have had a Robin Singh in our team. Doesn’t Navneet Singh sound like Navjot Singh (Siddhu). One cricketer, called Lakhi/Lucky looks a bit like Sachin Tendulkar, thanks to his height and curly hair (Would you believe it? The Actor’s real name is Sachin!). Names of foreign cricketers are either changed or only retained in half—either name or surname, which is enough to evoke identification. )? To avoid controversy and to give it a fictitious feel, the construction of the acronym BCCI is rearranged, to read IBCC, and there are more such changes in nomenclature, not to forget the advertising agency being called AWB, after Anuja’s own job at JWT. Incidentally, Zoya or No-ya, how prophetic was Anuja Chauhan in 2008! She set Zoya in 2009/10, and India did win the World Cup, in 2011, after 38 years.

Abhishek Sharma is the man who gave us Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive, The Shaukeens and Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran. In Zoya, with the pendulum swinging in different directions as the movie goes along—rom-com; cricket tale, both the glory and gory sides; the phenomenon of lucky charms and superstitions, with divine intervention added, juxtaposing them against each other; the Godman/Goddess syndrome; the take on the advertising industry, and more, director Sharma is less in control.

He is best treating it as a full-blooded comedy, which he does not. The writers oblige by giving him cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger, humdinger after humdinger matches, which are usually decided on the last ball, replays giving benefit to India, untimely rain intervening when all would have been otherwise lost and a player who has a 99 score jinx, failing to get his century every time, and Sharma just strings them together. Nobody says even once that 99 is a huge score, even a match-wining contribution, in any cricket match. It is implied in the film that Nikhil got scores of 99 over an extended period, in successive matches, which is hard to believe, even after suspension of disbelief. Consecutive dismissals on an individual score of 99 are among the rarest of rare cricketing statistics.

Sonam Kapoor Ahuja (Neerja, Pad Man, Sanju) is her effusive, supercool self. 34 in real-life, she does pass-off as a 27er. There was really no need to create Brechtian distancing by making her talk to the camera while scenes are being enacted, though one can understand this technique as a film director’s way of letting the viewer in on her thoughts, a format more common to literature than cinema. She is much more acceptable as the confused spinner…sorry, spinster and lovelorn woman than the mascot, Great Scott, God-woman.

Ladies and gentlemen, walking up to the batting…acting crease is Dulquer Salmaan. In just his second Hindi film after Karwaan, this 33 year-old Malayalam speaking actor wows you with the equivalent of a cricket century. He is credible, vulnerable, practical and so, so spontaneous! The old man and the widow scene is watchable, thanks only to Dulquer. The half star you see added to the rating is because of his and Sonam’s uninhibited screen presences. The six packs that Salmaan exposes to Sonam are a bonus. There cannot be two Salmaans in one Hindi film industry, and Dulquer is a mouthful. So what will he do with his name? Here’s a Dulem…dilemma.

Sanjay Kapoor and Sikandar Kher are there to enjoy themselves, in ill-defined roles. Sanjay still has the characteristic lisp, and does not look 53, the approximate age his character needs to be, though he is 53. Their jokes and banter, with Kher calling Zoya “Jhadoo” (broom, after her cleanliness fixation) are intended in good fun but fail to rise above the routine. There is some loose editing here too. Angad Bedi has a meaty role, with negativity, defined by his immoral desire to wrest back the team’s captaincy from Nikhil. He does justice.

Pooja Bhamrrah plays the TV journalist Sonali who covers the matches and does her own bit of fixing on the side. She gives the part the requisite dressing. In a very special appearance, Anil Kapoor is the star who is supposed to speak lines written by Zoya, who cannot read because her jaw and tongue are numb as the effect of the local anaesthetic given by her dentist has yet to wear off. The scene is well-conceived, till it goes over-board, yet the hoi polloi will enjoy it for sure. Koel Purie treats her role as if she was inspired by one of her less favourite school-teachers.

Supporting this team are Udit Arora as Ketan, Abhilash Chaudhary as Shivi, Jashan Singh Kohli as Navneet Singh, Gandharv Dewan as Harvindar (Harry) Singh, Abhishek Madrecha as Zahid Pathan—all cricketers--Saurabh Shukla as Nikhil's father, Rahul Khanna as Nikhil's brother, Vikas Mandaliya as Vishal, Shoaib Ahmed as Dabbu, R. Bhakti Klein as Wes Hardin, Indian Coach, Pankaj Dheer (Guest appearance), Manu Rishi and Pradhuman Singh (the writer?).

Useful contributions come from composers Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy (songs), Indrajit Sharma and Parikshit Sharma (background score), Manoj Lobo (cinematography; don’t blame him for too many top angles) and Utsav Bhagat (editing). Editing could have been more imaginative, in scenes other than the clips of the matches. Length, at 134 minutes, is another issue. Chauhan’s book may be 520 pages in paperback, which might be a little bit unmanageable. But then what are the screenplay-writers, directors and editors for?

In The Zoya Factor, the ingredients do not add up to a winning recipe. The fare is not engaging enough even to a cricket-lover like me, so I pronounce a half-way result, a draw or a tie.

Rating: ** ½

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz9TN7ixPW0

In Chauhan’s book, Zoya goes to BanglaDesh, not SriLanka, and she is supposed to be 27. The Zoya book is summarised as: “When the younger players in India's cricket team find out that advertising executive Zoya Singh Solanki was born at the very moment India won the World Cup back in 1983, they are intrigued. When having breakfast with her is followed by victories on the field, they are impressed. And when not eating with her results in defeat, they decide she's a lucky charm. The nation goes a step further. Amazed at the ragtag team's sudden spurt of victories, it declares her a Goddess.

So when the eccentric IBCC President, and his mesmeric, always-exquisitely-attired Swamiji, invite Zoya to accompany the team to the tenth ICC World Cup, she has no choice but to agree. Pursued by international cricket boards on the one hand, wooed by Cola majors on the other, Zoya struggles to stay grounded in the thick of the world cup action. And it doesn't help that she keeps clashing with the erratically brilliant new skipper who tells her flatly that he doesn't believe in luck.”

Note the deviations in the film. No BanglaDesh. No exquisitely dressed Swamiji, and no pursuing by other International Cricket Boards and Cola majors. But if you watch the film till the end, you will be witness to an ode to Pepsi, an entire song! Why Pepsi? Why not? Any brand would bring in the greenbacks, but Pepsi is special for Anuja Chauhan. “Yeh dil maange” more and “Nothing official about it” were slogans Chauhan wrote herself for Pepsi, in addition to “Darr ke aage jeet hai” for Mountain Dew and “Tedha hai par mera hai” for Kurkure. (It matters little that some 50 years ago, I gave a headline to my review of a Hindi film, Tere Mere Sapne as ‘Tedhe Medhe Sapne’).