99 Songs (2019) does not actually contain ninety-nine songs. It has fourteen songs, which is still a lot for a contemporary movie, and since the songs are all written by legendary composer A. R. Rahman, I am happy to round up. And that's good, because the songs are really the main attraction here.
When we meet Jai (Ehan Bhat) he's about to graduate from college with a degree in music and technology. Jai is good looking, talented, and haunted by the memory of his father (Diwakar Pundir), an angry man who blamed music for everything that's gone wrong in his life, and forbade Jai from having anything to do with it. (You can see how well that worked.)
Jai is in love with Sophie (Edilsy Vargas), a gifted artist, fashion designer, and dancer who cannot speak. (Yes, Jai has a mute muse named Sophia, which is a bit on the nose, but it's that sort of movie.) Her father Sanjay (Ranjit Barot) is rich, powerful, and incredibly smug. Sanjay is initially impressed by Jai and offers him a job managing a new digital music platform, but Jai wants to make music rather than distribute it. Sanjay doesn't want his daughter to depend on a struggling artist. Jai insists that one song can change the world, leading Sanjay to ask, "Where's the song?" The discussion ends with an old fashioned ordeal for Jai; he can't see Sophie again, let alone marry her, until he's written one hundred songs.
Jai agrees to Sanjay's terms, but when he tries to write he's immediately hit with writer's block. His best friend Polo (Tenzing Dalha) takes him to Shillong, which helps, but eventually the writer's block returns. Polo takes him to meet Sheela (Lisa Ray), the Jazz Queen of Shillong, and that really helps, but eventually things go horribly wrong, leaving Jai in an asylum run by a dedicated psychologist who doesn't seem to have a character name (Manisha Koirala).
It is really hard to convey artistic brilliance in a movie, because somebody has got to create the painting or poem or song that all the characters are marveling at. Jai is supposed to be an incredibly gifted composer and he needs to produce one amazing song by the movie's end. Fortunately, A. R. Rahman really is that good, and the music is fantastic.
That's just as well, because the actual plot is a bit thin. This is a movie which has specific things to say about music and love and all that (literal) Jazz, and it does so by relentlessly following a set pattern of plot beats. (Though I am happy that Sophie does get her own character arc, rather than merely serving as Jai's eventual reward.) Everything is wrapped in a layer of metaphor and allegory but the end result is still almost too straightforward. It's a gorgeous movie, though; the beautiful music is paired with beautiful cinematography. It's an okay love story with amazing music.
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