Okay, this film is really bad. Madhur Bhandarkar turns out to be a one-trick pony as each one of his films suffers from extremely poor execution. Chandni Bar was quite good, Page 3 definitely less so, Fashion was really average, and Heroine goes a few more steps down as a highly unconvincing film, which is very formulaic, lacking in focus, and almost comic in how stereotypical it is. In many ways it's just a takeoff on Fashion, offering a simplistic story of a big star who makes her way in the big cruel world of fashion, or film. I'm gonna put aside the biased, superficial portrayal of the film industry, which could be forgivable if the execution was right. But no, the film is just really poor and often looks like an amateurish college skit - the dialogue is awful, the dubbing and delivery is very, very unrealistic, the sound is annoying, and the entire product is melodramatic and with zero emotional impact. At times it looks like a cheap soap opera. The same is true for Kareena Kapoor, the leading lady, who is really let down by the poor script. This is one of her worst roles in my opinion, and the writing doesn't even allow her to develop an iota of character. It's all about exteriors, she has to look right, she has to exude confidence, but true depth that could have been brought out by a better actress, is absent in this film. Heroine is a stereotypical formula film which does harm to the Hindi film industry both because how it portrays it and because how bad it is in and of itself.
