Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
I saw Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, this weekend. It was a terrible movie, with Rani Mukherjee and Shahrukh Khan pretending to be lovers but with no real chemistry. Preity Zinta had the best lines, for instance she said why is a man never questioned when he does not spend a lot of time with his child, but a woman is questioned ? Abhishek Bachan was the most genuine and the best actor among the group. The movie lacked passion and was filled with a lot of fake tears by the actors and actresses that lacked genuine emotions. By the end of the three hours, we left with a bad taste and a feeling of how empty the movie was.
Namrata Joshi has reviewed the movie in Outlook and I agree with most of what she says about it.
Despite an unprecedented media hype, Karan Johar’s KANK remains a largely underwhelming experience. It’s overlong and plodding but the core problem is the two key players, Dev (SRK) and Maya (Rani) and their extra-marital relationship, which is neither convincing nor moving enough to make a connect with the viewers.
Karan does make some calculated departures. He looks at infidelity in a non-judgemental way, doesn’t take any moral stand on the issue and doesn’t resort to the usual sindoor and mangalsutra tripe. But, like his earlier films, infidelity too gets grounded in the familiar friendship versus love debate. Should you marry someone just because you have fallen in friendship than in love? What should you do when true love comes after marriage? And so you have Dev and Maya, both rude, bad-tempered, whiny, grouchy, self-pitying people. That’s ok; losers too have a right to fall in forbidden love. But then what is it that draws them so inexorably together; where is the incredible pull? Do you walk out of a marriage because of a bad mood day, do you fall in love with another person because he is as much of a sourpuss as you are? And when in love, don’t you grow and change? Dev and Maya stay stiff and stuffy, more affected than affecting.
The star acts are uniquely colourless too. Rani with her designer tears looks like a bland mannequin and SRK is well SRK, only less charming, more grating. Take his grand entry. As he lifts that T-shirt to reveal his dimpled face and stretches his arms (which remain eternally stretched in Mitwa), it doesn’t create magic, only orders you: "Look at me, I’m a star".
Karan claims KANK came to him from Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset. But there you could feel the bonding between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy even through their everyday conversations on Paris streets. You could feel that passionate spark between Amitabh and Rekha in Silsila, you could see the dilemmas on the tender face of Leela Naidu when her old love returns in Anuradha. Clandestine love has to be made of sterner stuff than KANK
Namrata Joshi has reviewed the movie in Outlook and I agree with most of what she says about it.
Despite an unprecedented media hype, Karan Johar’s KANK remains a largely underwhelming experience. It’s overlong and plodding but the core problem is the two key players, Dev (SRK) and Maya (Rani) and their extra-marital relationship, which is neither convincing nor moving enough to make a connect with the viewers.
Karan does make some calculated departures. He looks at infidelity in a non-judgemental way, doesn’t take any moral stand on the issue and doesn’t resort to the usual sindoor and mangalsutra tripe. But, like his earlier films, infidelity too gets grounded in the familiar friendship versus love debate. Should you marry someone just because you have fallen in friendship than in love? What should you do when true love comes after marriage? And so you have Dev and Maya, both rude, bad-tempered, whiny, grouchy, self-pitying people. That’s ok; losers too have a right to fall in forbidden love. But then what is it that draws them so inexorably together; where is the incredible pull? Do you walk out of a marriage because of a bad mood day, do you fall in love with another person because he is as much of a sourpuss as you are? And when in love, don’t you grow and change? Dev and Maya stay stiff and stuffy, more affected than affecting.
The star acts are uniquely colourless too. Rani with her designer tears looks like a bland mannequin and SRK is well SRK, only less charming, more grating. Take his grand entry. As he lifts that T-shirt to reveal his dimpled face and stretches his arms (which remain eternally stretched in Mitwa), it doesn’t create magic, only orders you: "Look at me, I’m a star".
Karan claims KANK came to him from Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset. But there you could feel the bonding between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy even through their everyday conversations on Paris streets. You could feel that passionate spark between Amitabh and Rekha in Silsila, you could see the dilemmas on the tender face of Leela Naidu when her old love returns in Anuradha. Clandestine love has to be made of sterner stuff than KANK
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