THE FILM Fashion should discourage any woman to take up modeling as a career. It tells the story of two girls who become super models, but their personal lives are marked by drugs, sex, abortion, and what have you. One of them commits suicide, the other becomes a wreck. You come out of the theatre wondering what it was all about.

The story of Fashion is nothing new. Young girls who have won a beauty contest in a small town dream of becoming big names in the fashion industry. They reach Bombay and find that their looks sell. They get paid to attend parties, and patrons are willing to prop them up if they are willing to compromise. Once they achieve stardom they can’t handle their success. They become arrogant and are promptly thrown out of the industry.

Fashion tells us directly that all the familiar faces of models that we see on TV may actually be exploited, pathetic girls. There is not one girl shown in the movie who is seen as successful without compromising. If this is the real face of these beautiful models, it is a sad reality indeed.

The movie builds characters that are unreal. The protagonist, Meghna Mathur appears to be from a middle class family, but an unreal middle class family. Her father is against her becoming a model, yet mysteriously becomes a support in the end of the movie. Surprisingly, the girl returns home after going through drugs, abortion and sex with unknown people, to be accepted by her family. In real life they would probably throw a fit and murder the poor girl. Surprisingly also, the family does not insist in marrying her off; the director forgets that middle class India is obsessed with marriage.

The character of Meghna Mathur is a strange one. She has none of the middle class hang-ups about living with her boy friend and then becoming a mistress of her benefactor. No qualms of conscience, no family reprisals. The parents conveniently vanish from the scene only to reappear towards the end of the movie. It is hard to digest that small town girls have "progressed" to this degree. Fashion is thus a superficial look at the lives of these girls who want to become models.

I don’t know anything about the glamour industry, but if this is the real face of the industry, I am not very impressed. And the movie was not enjoyable either, because it did not offer anything new. It was like watching a collection of television news channels. Nor can one relate to Meghna Mathur and her family. In short, the movie falls flat.

Frankly, I expected a better movie. The director’s earlier movie was a more mature work, even though the theme of ambitious girls being exploited existed in that one too. Priyanka Chopra is wasted in the movie, she remains a plastic cut-out. And what is the message of the movie? Compromise you will be successful as a model. Some message, that. Many young girls will find that their parents will not let them go to Bombay for their careers, after seeing the movie.