Luck by Chance

Luck by Chance is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Zoya Akhtar in her directorial debut. Produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, it stars Farhan Akhtar and Konkana Sen Sharma in lead roles, with Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Juhi Chawla, Sanjay Kapoor, Isha Sharvani, Alyy Khan and Sheeba Chaddha in pivotal supporting roles. Hrithik Roshan makes an extended cameo appearance. Guest stars and industry folk starring as themselves included Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshaye Khanna, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Karan Johar, Manish Malhotra, Ranbir Kapoor, John Abraham, Vivek Oberoi, Rajkumar Hirani, Boman Irani and Anurag Kashyap in cameos. The film shows the journey of an aspiring actor who arrives in Mumbai to become a movie star. How he finds himself riding his fortune to becoming one, while struggling to sustain his relationships, forms the story.

Luck by Chance released on 30 January 2009, and was a moderate commercial success. However, it received widespread critical acclaim, with major praise for its novel concept, story, screenplay, dialogues and performances of the cast. At the 55th Filmfare Awards, Luck by Chance received 5 nominations, including Best Supporting Actor (Rishi) and Best Supporting Actress (Kapadia), and won Best Debut Director (Zoya, tying with Ayan Mukerji for Wake Up Sid).

Plot
Vikram is a young actor from Delhi, who arrives in Mumbai to make it as a Bollywood film star. He seeks help from Abhimanyu, an actor friend from his hometown, through whom Vikram meets his neighbor Sona—a young actress who frequents working in supporting roles for female costars—and the two become romantically involved. During their time together, Vikram convinces Sona to enroll into a luck contest for a chance at a new Godrej fridge to replace her own broken one.

Sona is promised bigger mainstream roles and strung along by small-time producer, Satish. After years of waiting, when Satish secures funding for a new project, Sona visits him expecting to be cast as the second lead, he still turns her down. She becomes distraught but composes herself as Satish's wife enters the van. On the pretext of being there to drop photographs of her cousin, she leaves behind snaps of Vikram from his latest photoshoot, and then quickly leaves.

Satish's wife likes the photos, and forwards them to Romy Rolly's team. Romy is one of the biggest producers, who—after bigshot Zafar Khan unexpectedly dropped out of the film—is looking to cast a fresh face. Vikram is invited to audition along with dozens of other young actors. At a film fraternity party, Vikram crosses paths with Neena, a famous actress past her prime. Knowing that her daughter, Nikki, has been cast in Romy's film, Vikram grandly compliments her. She reacts favourably despite his exaggerations, and becomes instrumental in him getting the part. Vikram and Sona celebrate him landing the lead role.

On set, Nikki is smitten by Vikram, and sneaks into his room at night. The two start a secret affair, though it soon becomes obvious to the film's crew. Sona arrives at the hotel where the cast is staying to surprise Vikram. He acts unexpectedly cold towards her, confirming her suspicions of a blossoming romance between him and Nikki. Neena gets suspicious as well, and sits her daughter and Vikram down to explain that they must maintain the image of being 'eligibly single' for the sake of the film's success.

As the shoot comes to an end, news of the affair has leaked out. Sona's friend, Tanveer who works at a tabloid, writes a scathing piece depicting Vikram as a crafty manipulator, who successfully conned three women—Neena, Nikki and Sona—before even rising to stardom. Vikram and Nikki have a fight and break up. Sona is upset, and holes herself up in her home. Vikram catches her on her rooftop, accusing her of being responsible for the article. Sona barges into the tabloid office to berate Tanveer. On her return, she finds that she is the lucky winner of the contest that Vikram had enrolled on behalf of her, and receives a new refrigerator.

Eventually, Romy Rolly's film is released and becomes a superhit. Vikram becomes an overnight star, buying an expensive new home and making new friends in the industry.

At a party, Vikram meets his idol Shah Rukh Khan, who notices that he keeps his friends waiting. Shah Rukh advises Vikram to not forget those who stood by him before he was famous. Taking heed of this, Vikram visits Sona and apologizes for his affair with Nikki. He expresses guilt, but Sona believes she has seen enough of him to understand his true nature, and walks out of his life. While driving away, Sona reflects on her life, feeling content at leading a comfortable, independent life, despite never making it as a major film star.

Meanwhile, Nikki is hurt by Vikram's conduct in the relationship, however, Neena then speaks to her urging her to take advantage of the popularity of her relationship with Vikram and the publicity from it instead of pushing it away. Neena in passing starts to mention how much she too had to go through as a woman to become an established star to make her mark in the industry.

Cast

 * Farhan Akhtar as Vikram Jaisingh
 * Konkona Sen Sharma as Sona Mishra
 * Rishi Kapoor as Rommy Rolly
 * Dimple Kapadia as Neena Walia
 * Juhi Chawla as Minty Rolly
 * Sanjay Kapoor as Ranjit Rolly
 * Isha Sharvani as Nikki Walia
 * Alyy Khan as Satish Chaudhary
 * Sheeba Chaddha as Pinky Chaudhary
 * Saurabh Shukla as Nand Kishore
 * Arjun Mathur as Abhimanyu 'Abhi' Gupta
 * Sid Makkar as Sameer
 * Pankaj Kalra as Raju
 * Arvind Vaidya as Pandit Ji

Extended cameo

 * Hrithik Roshan as Zafar Khan

Guest appearances

 * Aamir Khan
 * Abhishek Bachchan
 * Akshaye Khanna
 * Anurag Kashyap
 * Boman Irani
 * Dia Mirza
 * Javed Akhtar
 * John Abraham
 * Karan Johar
 * Kareena Kapoor
 * Mac Mohan
 * Manish Acharya
 * Manish Malhotra
 * Mushtaq Shiekh
 * Rajkumar Hirani
 * Ranbir Kapoor
 * Rani Mukerji
 * Ronit Roy
 * Shabana Azmi
 * Shah Rukh Khan
 * Vivek Oberoi

Development
Zoya Akhtar said in an interview that she wrote the first draft 7 years ago while relaxing on Palolem beach in Goa. In an interview she said: "I hand wrote it and it was some ridiculous, epic-length when I came back and transcribed it on my laptop. The first film is the easiest to write because it's usually what the person knows their personal graphs, milieu and feelings. Luck By Chance is not about established actors, but those who are waiting for things to happen. Farhan's character is fresh off the boat, while Konkana's does bit roles, while looking for a big break."

The production team went through a host of names, like Madhuri Dixit, Saif Ali Khan, Kajol, Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, and Rani Mukerji. Having seen a lot of struggling actors come to Mumbai to make a living out of Bollywood, Zoya found it was easy to write the script for the film without any research. She was inspired to write this film by a lot of Bollywood-inspired movies like Guddi (1971), Rangeela (1995), and Om Shanti Om (2007).

Javed Akhtar wrote the dialogues for the film, incorporating, as Zoya puts it, his bizarre sense of humor. Farhan had to reportedly train to get six pack abs for the film. He was trained by Cheetah Yagnesh, who appeared on the film as the trainer of Farhan's character.

Filming faced a lot of problems, including the unpredictable Mumbai rains, which halted a song shoot with Hrithik Roshan. The rains washed out the entire set, and eventually the entire tent began to leak. Zoya was afraid that this would lead to short-circuit, and so all the lights had to be switched off.

According to Farhan, principal photography for the film was completed in October 2008.

Casting
Zoya Akhtar cast her brother Farhan to play the lead role after it was suggested to her by director Reema Kagti. She became convinced after seeing Farhan's performance in The Fakir of Venice. She said in an interview, "Farhan was the perfect choice for the role in Luck By Chance because he knows the industry in and out. He is smart and bright and both of us have been working together for years." Problems arose with the huge casting of the film. Zoya said, "I had to really think it out when I was deciding on these multiple actors that I wanted in the film. It was tough to decide especially because I wanted the right actors who could play themselves and still look believable as part of the film. Then there are other good actors like Boman Irani and Saurabh Shukla, who are playing characters in the film". Next to be cast were her parents, Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi, along with such veteran stars as Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. Zoya said, "We could have had Shabana (Azmi) as the diva, but I needed a mainstream heroine. Only a leading lady would do. Dimple has played it edgy. She's all warm, soft sunshine and then there's a flip and she's hard, cold, steely". Isha Sharvani teams up again with Hrithik Roshan after appearing together in an ad. Juhi Chawla joined the cast playing Minty, the wife of producer Rommy Rolly.

Promotion
The producers decided to go with subtle promotion, letting audiences explore the film by themselves. The main trailer for the film was released in the last week of December 2008. It introduced the main characters and set the pace for what the plot was about. BigFlix, a part of Reliance BIG Entertainment Ltd., was given the task of promoting the film. The first bit of promotion came from the music wherein winners were given signed albums by Farhan Akhtar and Konkona Sen Sharma. They promoted the whole film across the nation in all 112 stores in 10 cities as well to the international audiences through its video-on-demand (VOD) site. The pre-release promotional activities included online marketing and publicity of the film's music videos, trailers, downloads, previews, preview shows, contests and continued with other promotional activities post-release like meet-and-greet events with the star cast at select cities.

A unique promotional campaign was launched by producers Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani called "Auto By Chance". They introduced 10 "Auto by Chance" three-wheelers in suburban Mumbai that would transport people for free to the destination of their choice in the suburbs. The promotion was run in conjunction with Big FM radio station and Godrej. One passenger would be interviewed live by an RJ and go on air with his experience of getting lucky and enjoying the free ride. The Indian gaming portal Zapak.com created a microsite for the movie with a game, "Luck by Chance - Lucky Break".

Release
Luck by Chance was initially scheduled to be released 23 January 2009, alongside Raaz - The Mystery Continues, but was pushed to 30 January. Luck by Chance was released on 900 screens worldwide in 27 countries. Of this, over 700 screens were in India and the rest were in overseas markets such as the United States, Canada, UK, UAE, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Luck By Chance 's DVD was published by UTV Home Video. Luck By Chance 's television premiere took place on Star Plus.

Critical reception
Luck By Chance received widespread critical acclaim upon release. Anupama Chopra of NDTV wrote, "Zoya pokes fun at Bollywood but she does it with a great affection. There are some lovely little moments like the star daughter in a super short skin-tight outfit struggling to touch her producer's feet without splitting a seam. But what makes Luck By Chance compelling is the layers beneath the laughs. Though the first half wobbles precariously as the script struggles to find a momentum, but thankfully the narrative flows better in the latter half and culminates in a satisfying, bittersweet end". In the review at UAE Daily the United Arab Emirates reviewer said, "One of the prime reasons why Luck By Chance works is because [of] the writing...Right from the characters, to the individualistic scenes, to the way Zoya puts them in a sequence, Luck By Chance is easily one of the most cohesive scripts this side of the Atlantic. If Zoya's writing is superb, her execution of the written material deserves distinction marks". The Times of India said, "Luck By Chance highlights how the film industry give regards to everything else but the story when making a movie and ironically weaves a fascinating story using that paradox". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL.in cited some drawbacks and said, "Luck By Chance provides you some smiles throughout the movie. However, it fails to leave you with the content smile that a feel-good movie ideally aims to do."

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80%, based on 15 reviews with an average score of 6.78/10. Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said, "It might seem as if Bollywood couldn't possibly satirize itself – the genre is already so over-the-top – but Zoya Akhtar manages the trick deftly in Luck by Chance...A fabulous circus-theme musical number pulls out all the stops, but a scene in which an acting teacher explains why Hindi stars have to be more talented than those in Hollywood is a subtle comic gem"...[I]t is Mr. Akhtar whose understated performance holds together this far-ranging, cameo-filled film. He manages to remain sympathetic even while wreaking romantic havoc". Frank Lovece of Film Journal International characterized it as, "The Player (1992) meets All About Eve (1950) in this seriocomic satire of the Bollywood film industry by a first-time director whose collaring of over a dozen major Hindi stars for cameos speaks well of its biting accuracy".

Box office
Luck by Chance had a slow start at the box office and registered 25% to 30% attendance. According to trade analyst and critic Joginder Tuteja, the occupancy at the theatres came down to 50%. Outside India, the film performed as per expectations.

In the US, Luck by Chance debuted at number 32. In its opening weekend, it collected $217,439 (approximately Rs. 1.06 crores) on 61 screens, a per-screen average of $3,556. In the UK, Luck By Chance debuted at number 21 and collected £73,822 (approximately Rs. 50.95 lacs) on 50 screens, with a per-screen average of £1,476. The film did very well in Australia and was a hit in India, grossing $3,914,500 at the box office. Worldwide, the film grossed $4,504,365.

Awards

 * 55th Filmfare Awards :

Won


 * Best Debut Director – Zoya Akhtar (shared with Ayan Mukerji for Wake Up Sid)

Nominated


 * Best Supporting Actor – Rishi Kapoor
 * Best Supporting Actress – Dimple Kapadia
 * Best Story – Zoya Akhtar
 * Best Screenplay – Zoya Akhtar