HEART TRICK
After ‘Socha Na Tha’ and ‘Jab We Met,’ Imtiaz Ali dreams up another winning romance – about love today versus love yesterday.
AUG 2, 2009 – AFTER ONE OF THE NUMBERS IN PRITAM’S UTTERLY INFECTIOUS soundtrack – this one named Twist – Jai (Saif Ali Khan) hooks up with a charming blonde, and subsequently, in order to share the good news, he dials Meera (Deepika Padukone). (She’s his ex; they’ve had the most gracious, good-humoured breakup in the history of the universe.) At the other end, Meera smiles, genuinely happy that Jai has moved on – but once he hangs up, she’s not so sure. She catches sight of herself in the mirror. She pulls in her waist. She appraises her posture. She parts her lips wide, as if to reassure herself that it’s indeed a dazzling smile, capable of drawing someone charming into her life too, perhaps her boss Vikram (Rahul Khanna) who’s taking her to dinner – and she changes into a dress that reveals more-than-necessary leg and cleavage for a casual evening out (even if it is something of a date.)
In a film more attuned to melodrama, you can imagine the scene ending with Meera dissolving into self-pitying sobs, but in Love Aaj Kal, the moment (like the movie) is remarkably low-key – and it highlights, with pinpoint precision, the free-floating sense of anxiety and unease that pervades relationships today. Initially, the title of Imtiaz Ali’s beautifully written third feature appears to point towards the two parallel romantic tracks that play out – the first (Love: Aaj), set in the present day, between Jai and Meera, and the second (Love: Kal), situated in a sepia-tinted yesterday, between Veer (Saif in the flashbacks, Rishi Kapoor in the present) and Harleen (a willowy newcomer who’s as lusciously exotic as the early Zeenat Aman.) And for a while, it does look like the director is simply out to have a little fun comparing and contrasting long-ago love with what it’s transmuted to in our modern age.
The older love was barely audible, content to be manifest in secret glances and silent smiles, while lovers, today, communicate incessantly, through phone, through SMS, through chat, through e-mail. Where, once, physical expressions of love were reserved for after marriage, it’s not uncommon, now, to try to cop a feel in public. But more importantly, where earlier generations went after love with their dil, their unabashed hearts worn on their unashamed sleeves, today’s love sprouts from the dimaag, the ever-calculating brain. Jai and Meera broke up because they intellectualised that it would be too difficult to pursue a long distance relationship, what with him in London and with her moving to India. Such a practical facet of love – sacrificing mutual chemistry at the altar of geography – would have been unthinkable earlier, where people believed that love surmounted not just distance but also destiny, across seven lifetimes.
Unlike Meera in the present, who dithers between Jai and Vikram, and unlike Jai who attempts, with laughable desperation, to convince himself that he has a future with his blonde, Harleen and Veer know they are meant for each other. They felt it with their hearts and that was all that was needed. Is such a love practical in today’s terms? Perhaps not! But it sure as hell would make things simpler – and part of Ali’s agenda is also to lay out, for us, the ways in which we, aaj kal, overcomplicate our relationships. And it is this aspect of the film that truly soars. The complementariness in the cross-cutting love stories is pleasantly diverting (if not particularly memorable), but what lifts Love Aaj Kal to a different plane altogether is its employment of a long-ago age, when a man simply laid eyes on a woman and went about securing her, in order to bounce off riffs on our age, when a man lays eyes on one woman, and then another, then yet another, unable to decide who, if indeed anyone, is right for him.
After the low-key delight that was Socha Na Tha, Jab We Met made me wonder if Imtiaz Ali had opted to go Bollywood with a vengeance, especially as the refreshingly unpredictable first half gave way to the increasingly banal latter portions, rife with convenient (though undeniably crowd-pleasing) coincidences. But here, he recaptures the grace as well as the grit of his first feature. He’s unafraid to show how love can make even good people become temporarily… not-so-good. (A scene where Meera winds up hurting Vikram is reminiscent of the one in Socha Na Tha where the hero ends up hurting the girl he thought he was in love with.) Ali is the rare director who puts his protagonists through embarrassingly imperfect (namely, all-too-human) paces that sometimes makes them feel like antagonists. When Jai visits Meera in India, her reaction, at first, is to have him meet (her boyfriend) Vikram, but she instinctively decides it’s not such a great idea.
She wants Jai to herself, even it means reneging on her unspoken compact with Vikram, and soon we see why. When Jai and Meera are on a local train, he makes fun of the distance between them and asks if he can put an arm around her. The minute he does, she leans back and closes her eyes, and her mock-protest of a second ago (“doosre log samjhenge nahin,” that others won’t understand) assumes a new meaning. Who else can really get what she feels when she’s with Jai? This comfort, this feeling of home that one shares with an ex is an aspect that’s never found its way onto our screens before. Every time we try out a new person in a new relationship, there’s so much work involved that it’s easier, sometimes, to just be with someone who’s already familiar, perhaps overly so, and especially now that there’s no relationship baggage.
All this heavy lifting is typically leavened with Ali’s now-trademarked brand of understated humour. He has great fun with the notion that we tiptoe on eggshells while in a relationship, but once we break free of the ties that bind, things become simpler (and, frankly, less serious). One of the film’s best scenes has Jai and Meera, post breakup, volleying back and forth about the things they did not like about each other while they were still a couple. (“Jab saath mein the tab itna mazaa nahin aata tha,” Meera delights later, that their togetherness was never this much fun.) In a relatively short span, Ali has become our foremost chronicler of the warts-and-all modern-day romance – and possibly the only thing that keeps Love Aaj Kal from true greatness is the lead pair. (I kept imagining Ranvir Shorey and Konkona Sen Sharma as Jai and Meera, but then the lines at the ticket counters wouldn’t snake around the block, would they?)
Deepika appears too callow for the part, and Saif too callused. (Plus, he’s really the last actor you’d cast as a Sardar.) She isn’t quite equipped (at least, as yet) to pull off the heavier scenes, while the edges of his solipsistic character are softened by light moments that try far too much to make us like him. (Though with Ali’s memorable non-sequiturs, it’s hard not to laugh when, for instance, a tipsy Jai enters a building and casually enquires of the doorman, “Aur bhai, kya haal chaal?”) Perhaps Saif is in a stage of his life now where it’s easier to channel the weightier stuff. It’s impossible not to imagine how much of himself he’s putting out there in the superb scene where, when confronted with a life-altering decision that Meera makes, his emotions vacillate like quicksilver. Like they say you can’t play Lear till you are truly old and enfeebled, maybe you can’t enact a man frustrated by the fickleness of love till you’ve stomped around in his shoes.
Copyright ©2009 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
rooney
August 1, 2009
thanks rangan ji u made my day .. iwas quite disppointed when many who said that they didnt liked it…m seeing tomorrow and ur opinion is final as for me thanx again…
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SB
August 1, 2009
great review! can’t wait to watch this now. i love how you pointed out those little non-sequitors that imtiaz ali puts in. one of my favorite truly laugh-out-loud moments in jab we met is when kareena is chasing shahid through the train station and he pushes aside the policeman/guard to escape her, and kareena says to the guard “nalaayak, ye vardi utaar ke phek de!” it has nothing to do with anything but it was sooo funny!
and i think so many of us can relate to how much easier it is to get along with an ex after the break up. this may not be true for everyone, but i definitely had a moment when my ex and i went jogging once after we had broken up, and we were laughing and having so much fun, and he was like “how come we never did this when we were a couple?”
universal, some things. and ali seems to have his pulse on them.
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Vishal
August 1, 2009
Nice review! Looking forward to see this movie. I was not very hopeful with this one, but from your (always-reliable) review, it looks like Imtiaz Ali did it once again.
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Cherish
August 1, 2009
I was very happy to read the review. My exact feelings. Deepika is the only weak link in the movie.
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Amrita
August 2, 2009
Frankly, even if this movie had turned out to be a huge dud, if this is an Imtiaz Ali dud, then I’ll take it over most people’s successes.
It’s so incredibly refreshing to have movies with such individualistic and modern women without them being punished for it or having to live through three hours of melodrama to justify it. I’m standing here bowl in hand and shamelessly asking for more.
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Footydoc
August 2, 2009
The movie, and your review, has left me with mixed emotions. I agree that there are vignettes that are extremely pleasing, and reflect an increasing maturity/urbanisation in hindi cinema, in parallel with urban young in today’s India. Yet overall I was left with the impression that the movie was gimmicky, trying to be too cool or hip. But what might have sounded fabulous at the writing stage comes out as hackneyed and completely unreal when translated onto screen.
### SPOILER ALERT#### One example is Saif’s monologue to Deepika at night after the wedding, where every serious sentence he utters was followed by an ‘oh so cool’ quip. Which was both unreal and completely removed any emotional angle to the scene. Agreed, both the protagonists were poor for the roles, and the movie might have fared much better in more competent hands – Ranvir and Konkona would have truly been excellent choices. You have been very kind to the both leads, with your critique brilliantly understated and damning them with faint praise.
Ultimately the film did not work for me at all, irrespective of the few snatches of memorable scenes (Rishi Kapoor continuing to drink his tea from a glass tumbler, of the kind found in Indian roadside teashops, even in his pub/cafe in London), since the movie did not convey emotional depth due to disjointed writing,inadequate acting, poor chemistry, and for trying to be too clever by half. As if trying to shout out loud – look we have pushed the boundaries of hinid cinema. We have shown two ex-lovers can be friends and can communicate in a hip fashion. And ###SPOILER ALERT#### for the first time we have shown that either of the lovers getting married to a thrid person (in the presence of the other) still does not mean “bahut daer ho gayaa hai”, since there is still hope for the love to be requited and the lovers to be united.
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Godard
August 2, 2009
Li’l moments like these, which you have pinpointed here in your review is all what is good in Love Aaj Kal. Reading a screenplay gives you a totally different experience as opposed to going and watching how the director implemented it. For me, the movie was good on paper and in pure scientific terms – the uncontrolled plot was way better than the controlled (directed) plot. 😉
The scenes were perfectly laid out, but the actors messed it up. The lighter moments you could connect to, but the dramatic scenes fell flat. Most importantly the scene were Saif realizes what is wrong with him (gets robbed and beaten up). Bad acting, bad direction, impact = zero. Also, songs were forced into the narrative.
So, for the first time I sort of disagree with your review. 🙂 I say ‘sort of’ because you have dedicated 7 paragraphs to what the movie is all about (crediting the screenplay), but you did not expand on the last paragraph where you criticize the lead pair. This review (of yours) is very different from your earlier ones in-terms of packaging. I think you pretty much felt the same about NewYork, but there you gave preference to acting and here you explained more about the scenes. Honestly, if your review (minus last paragraph) is combined with Rajeev Masand’s (ibnlive), I think that sort of sums up what the movie is all about.
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brangan
August 2, 2009
SB: That line always cracks me up. Even here, there’s a nicely envisaged feel to the staging (where the environs have been taken into account) — like Saif and Deepika will begin a conversation, and midway he’ll remark, “Hum khade kyon hain?”
Amrita: You should let me know how you felt the character of Saif’s blonde girlfriend was handled. I thought that was a lovely side character, not exactly important to the story, but handled with so much dignity (despite the easy possibility of “floozie” jokes).
Even JWM had a great moment when Shahid and Kareena think up ways to break off her engagement with that Sardar. He suggests that she declare the guy impotent. And she says he’s not. Shaid asks how she knows . And she just smiles and refuses to answer. Really interesting for a “heroine,” no? 🙂
Footydoc: I don’t know why people keep saying they found this trying to be “too cool or hip.” It’s no more cool or hip than the average multiplex movie out there.
Godard: “I think you pretty much felt the same about NewYork” — not at all. The acting there was rank bad and so was the film. Here, Saif was hardly “bad” in the cannot-pull-off-a-scene sense. Did my review really give that impression? I was going more for a “I could have used a younger actor” sense.
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Amrita
August 2, 2009
Baradwaj – I thought Jo the Blonde was great! After the crapfest that was KI, it was incredibly refreshing to see a blonde woman treated as a human being instead of a punch line, which she so easily could’ve become. Here’s what I wrote:
The smartest, and perhaps even bravest, person Jai meets on his journey might well be Jo the Swiss Blonde (what’s with Saif and Swiss blondes anyway?) who may not be able to speak English very well but is clever enough to directly address the big gaping hole in their relationship and ask him for what she needs – and then sweetly tells him to take a shovel to the bullshit he offers her instead.
Re: that scene in JBW… ha! hiding in plain sight! They discuss it so much I didn’t give it another thought but you’re right, given its Geet, there’s definitely more to it. 🙂
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sputnik
August 2, 2009
Agree with you on JWM. Its first half was excellent but the second half was banal and dragged specially the unnecessary climax.
Saif did look old and Deepika was ok. She was way better than Katrina in NY. The movie is actually bad in scenes where it tries to be super cool. It comes off across as trying to impress.
Rishi was ok and he did not have much to do. He was brilliant in Luck By Chance and good in Delhi 6. Some like Raja Sen have praised Neetu too much for just one scene where she does not even speak.
The movie is average. Sure it has some great scenes and some nice dialogues but it has also the worst first 20 minutes and the movie turns out to be Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna at the end. Some nice points here.
http://tanqeed.com/movies/lak.cfm
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S
August 2, 2009
I loved the movie and your review too.
I thought the lead pair was miscast too but IMO Konkana could have give the spark Meera’s character had…she would have made it wayy too boring :p…I liked Deepika’s look in the movie though her acting and dialogue delivery was way off
what about Rishi Kapoor? I really like the way he plays his characters… first Luck By Chance and now this..good stuff
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brangan
August 2, 2009
Footydoc: Also, reg. “As if trying to shout out loud – look we have pushed the boundaries of hinid cinema. We have shown two ex-lovers can be friends…” Along those lines, then, every film that breaks away from stereotype can be mocked as trying to be too cool and trying to push boundaries, right? You could accuse Salaam Namaste or Hey Ram or pretty much anything slightly off the beaten track as “wannabe.” You can’t have it both ways — you can’t complain about the same old stuff, and yet complain that the “new” stuff is trying too hard to *not* be the old stuff 🙂
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Ankur
August 2, 2009
The movie worked for me. I was with 7 friends (and we can laugh out loud in Gurgaon without worrying about decorum), was young enough to connect with the actors there – yes, people in real life talk like that, and of course I love Imtiaz Ali and his now trademark frank natural sense of humour.
I think Saif was a tad miscast – he doesn’t look 25 as much as he may try, but I think he was pretty good, Deepika makes up for a lot with her smile and presence, and I (and my friends) absolutely loved Harleen (played by a Brazilian – Giselle Monteiro!). Ali also does a couple of not-so-easily-noticed clever things – in the first couple of scenes in the Rishi Kapoor’s cafe, Rishi Kapoor is there in the background and his voice is audible without showing him explicitly, and also when Veer travels to Calcutta, the passage of time in the train is shown, the night, morning, day, evening and night again in a quick montage of scenes. Imtiaz Ali is much more than your average rom-com director.
In similar ways, I like Imitiaz Ali and Judd Apatow both, one for showing that boy meets girl needn’t be conventional and cliched, and the other for showing that humour needn’t be potty / racist / sexist to appeal to a wider base. Am desperately waiting for Funny People.
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fillum
August 2, 2009
Few weeks back some comdy movie relesed. This site made fun of it. Saying like what you can expect out of a movie that makes jokes like mango people for aam aadmi. But his favourrit imtiaz movie no, so same joke is maaf keejiyed. This is great writing. Bias to core. Pre determined switch hit by pitersen$ like that nbefore going into theatre, decide good review because imtiaz ali. Same lines different writer bad but imtiaz ali good. What a sane reviewer jee!
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Cherish
August 2, 2009
@fillum…please dont compare LAK with KI. LAK never tries to be fake and more importantly vulgar in its treatment to evoke laugh or pain and also gives due respect to women not as a sexual toy for publicity. Mango people was not meant to be a joke, but a reflection of todays lingo.
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Rakesh
August 2, 2009
The girl who played Harleen is a Brazilian
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/30/2009080220090802022229828315d4000/Kissa-kudis-ka.html
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E Pradeep
August 2, 2009
For once, I have to disagree with the BRangan review. It made me feel the director was just trying a tad too hard (something like Deepika telling Saif not to try being cool, just be it) and making it laborious at times. Maybe the drawing board script was great but on the screen, it just did not feel the same.
Tired of seeing Rishi Kappor in the previous generation lover avataar and sermonizing – honestly, for me, the ‘old’ vs ‘new’ thing did not work. By the end of it, I kept looking at the watch waiting for the movie to finish – maybe that’s cruel but my heart and brain was just not in it. Would be nice to see an intricate, understated drama that looks at the emotions of the people involved (even people like Rahul Khanna in the movie), without getting cowed down by the Golden Gate and ASI monuments.
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Srikanth
August 2, 2009
The “a willowy newcomer who’s as lusciously exotic as the early Zeenat Aman” is none other than a Brazilian model Giselle Monteiro!
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/30/2009080220090802022229828315d4000/Kissa-kudis-ka.html
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Srikanth
August 2, 2009
@BR
Not so sure whether to ask you this.But,nevertheless,how much would give it on a scale of 5?
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Priti
August 2, 2009
jab we met’s second half had a lot of super moments, that i like it almost as much as the first half. the scene in the train that they run to catch for fun, geet asks him straight out whether he likes her, and he admits, without fuss, that yes, he does, but asks her not to worry about it. i thought that was remarkably low key, considering how much melodrama can be milked out of it. and geet’s reluctance to tell her parents that aditya is not the boy she eloped with, but the other one, i thought that was so wonderfully uncomfortable… apart from the very end of the climax, i can’t think of anything else that i can call ‘crowd pleasing’ really 😀
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abhishek bardiya
August 2, 2009
no.kyonk it’s good
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Elizabeth
August 2, 2009
Sorry, but I think I’ll jump on the “trying too hard to be cool” bandwagon. The reason Socha Na Tha is so wonderful to me is that it felt natural. No at all forced in any way. As for Jab We Met, say what you will about the second half (which had some lovely moments), but the movie as a whole felt effortless and the actors managed to inhabit their characters without “acting”. With LAK? I could see the work. I could see the effort that went into every line (not in a good way), though I don’t know if it’s the fault of the actors or the director. I suspect a bit of both.
I think both SNT and JWM captured the essence of today’s youth far better than LAK did. They didn’t have countless scenes trying to prove their “coolness”. They just were what they were. Both JWM and SNT grabbed me right away, LAK had the most disjointed and confusing opening I’ve seen in a while. My head hurt a little from trying to figure out just what the heck was going on.
One of the reasons I’ve thought so highly of Imtiaz Ali is the writing. The main reason I was so impressed with SNT initially was because it managed to capture everyday conversations in a way that wasn’t even remotely filmi and with JWM, he managed to create familiar filmi situations and turn it on its head.
I love the scene in JWM when some guy on a bike chases Geet, thinking that she’s a prostitute. In most Bollywood movies (and Hollywood for that matter), the hero would somehow jump in to save the damsel. Instead, what we got was Geet running into Aditya, him being bewildered that she missed the train again and a simple, but hilarious “Yeh joker kaun hai, bike mein?”
Also love the moment in SNT where Aditi vents about having to constantly serve prospective grooms tea or coffee and a few moments later, Viren insists that he will make coffee for her. Or the final scene, which by all accounts should have been melodramatic, but instead turned out to be funny and charming (Viren’s horror that she had run away from her wedding is a classic).
So many more scenes and lines in those two movies which I felt were refreshing, unexpected and something one wouldn’t see in your average movie, but in LAK? Not so much. Did Imtiaz not write it? I’m curious.
I agree that the two leads were miscast. I liked Deepika initially in OSO, but since then, I’ve come to find her insipid. As for Saif, this role was probably a walk for him since it’s what he’s best at, but something just felt off. I can’t help but wonder what Aamir Khna would have done with this role. I know he’s too old to pass for 20 something as well, but maybe I thought of him because the character of Jai gave off a lot of Aakash (Dil Chahta Hai) vibes.
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fillum
August 2, 2009
Oh mango people today lingo. When imti ali uses it. Before that, that was stupid writing. Before going into show imti ali fns decide to like the movie – this site is one of those fanatics.
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Shankar
August 2, 2009
The picture on this review says it for me…I just can’t imagine Saif fitting into such a role!!
And for a moment, I thought it was the other Giselle before I clicked the link!! 🙂
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brangan
August 3, 2009
This piece is for Shalini 🙂
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brangan
August 3, 2009
Ankur: “Imtiaz Ali is much more than your average rom-com director.” I think so too. Like at the beginning, he cuts, without warning, to the train at the station, and we’re left gaping. “What the hell was that?” And then, as the story unfolds, we see why that editing decision was made. Also, things like how the fast nature of the cuts in the early scenes depicting the Saif-Deepika romance underlines the transitory (in the sense of non-heavy-duty) nature of their love. There’s one really amazing “bit” where they’re walking along a bridge and she asks, “Do you bring all your chicks here,” and… end of scene 🙂
E Pradeep: “Would be nice to see an intricate, understated drama” – see, but you’re looking at the film from the wrong end. This *is* (somewhat) intricate and understated, but it’s not a “drama.” It’s a rom-com (which is why I think many people are saying it’s so lightweight, and that Imtiaz Ali has lost his touch). So you have to look at it with *those* genre elements/sensibilities in mind, and if it still doesn’t work for you, then fine. But this is certainly not a drama.
The other issue, I feel, is that romcoms are typically more frothy, while this is not. There’s a delicate air of melancholia, which is also very unusual. (I called it “low-key” and Amrita was more on-the-ball when she said, “this is not an exuberant movie.”) That appears to be another problem, the lack of “high” moments.
Srikanth: I have a page on the star ratings I give for the paper. But the scale is slightly different. Here we consider four stars as “good”, three stars as “average” and so on, whereas elsewhere, four stars usually mean “very good” and three stars mean “good.” The logic, i think, is that most films are one- or two- or three-star material.
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Anonymous
August 3, 2009
palle nahin pada kuch
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Anand
August 3, 2009
BR: Two lovers decide to break up (due to some reason or the other), when they achieve ‘singledom’, they realize vacuum but not able to place it! Mani achieved it in 15 minutes in Alai payuthe. Imitiaz struggles in 2 hours. The movie was boring and I found there was no chemistry between the lead pair. Disappointing effort.
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Tejas
August 3, 2009
BR – Probably I would need exact sensibilities like yours to appreciate this movie so much. Alas, I like mine so much to let go.
Although each episode, if we may call it, was excellently written with lots of moments, the final assimilation of it did not translate into even remotely good. May be this type of movies should not be watched on Saturday evenings unless your job is to review them.
I thought the movie should have ended when Saif went to ‘Frisco and Deepika was left with her Fresco. That would have been a happy ending for me as far as the movie went. Unfortunately they opted for a happy ending for the couple in the film and not the one watching them. It did not turn out to be such a happy ending for us.
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Vineet Samson
August 3, 2009
Not a classic. Dont compare with Jab we met… but as one comment by Amrita puts it perfectly
”
Frankly, even if this movie had turned out to be a huge dud, if this is an Imtiaz Ali dud, then I’ll take it over most people’s successes.”
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brangan
August 3, 2009
As an aside, news from the OMFG department. Why? Why? Why? Even with Spielberg helming it, this looks so… wrong. And whoever will they cast in the Jimmy Stewart role? Tom Hanks?
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Vivek
August 4, 2009
@brangan: Let’s avenge Spielberg with an E.T remake :). Spielberg will need a lot of luck to get out of this pickle with his reputation intact.
On a side note, watched LAK yesterday, left me absolutely cold. All this while I truly enjoyed JWM and Socha Na Tha. This was to rom coms what Lakshya was to action movies or even “coming of age” movies. Nice screenplay, interesting conceit and some clever devices, but that’s that. A romantic comedy that underplays the romace and just about barely plays the comedy, isn’t too much fun to watch. Maybe this was a documentary!
Also I thought your review oversold the movie, but then again your last few Hindi reviews have been KI, SHortkut, Jashn,Luck, New York and Paying Guests!!! This would have seemed like manna from heaven if I had been subjected to that trash.
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Lakshman
August 4, 2009
I fondly remember watching “Socha Na Tha” with absolutely zero expectations since it was supposed to be the launch vehicle of another starson and was proved horribly wrong. Loved Jab We Met too. But what surprises me after seeing LAK is the guts of the director to go back to his (commercially unsuccessful) SNT mode with more emphasis on characters speaking and emoting like each one of us, rather than going for the (successful) JWM mode (which could still have been not that bad a thing). Another major relief in the movie was the absence of the eternal Punjabi mother Kiron Kher (when was the last time she acted in a meaningful role?) ****Digression****BR, what do you think about the “Raat Ke Dhaai Baje” song in Kaminey? I felt the song was a thumping victory (or whatever) for Reena Bharadwaj and Suresh Wadkar over the likes Sunidhi and Kunal Ganjawala? I just cant get enough of Reena…
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Shankar
August 4, 2009
Vivek, I thought we had already done that…liberally borrowing from E.T…in Koi Mil Gaya!! 🙂
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brangan
August 4, 2009
Lakshman: VB is easily the best thing that happened to Gulzar after RDB, and this album’s no different. There’s respect for the words, and yet, the music is catchy and foot-tapping enough to become an instant rage… Simply great stuff.
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Aditya Pant
August 4, 2009
Lakshman, it’s Rekha Bhardwaj. To my surprise, I found Suresh Wadkar a tad nasal in the song. I usually like his voice a lot and have always felt that he is criminally neglected. VB is the only one who can bring out the best in him (still can’t get enough of that song in Omkara), but here I was disappointed to see him getting lost in a group song. Would have loved to hear the title song in his voice, although VB has done a fair job in the singing department.
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Shankar
August 4, 2009
Yeah, I loved the Kaminey soundtrack too. Even the title number was instantly captivating.
As for the LAK soundtrack, I thought it seemed just a pretty amalgamation of sounds…didn’t really hit my emotions. It seemed like an assembly line product, not sure how it fits into the scenes since I haven’t watched the movie.
It seems like a majority, if not most, of music directors today employ the new age technique to assemble sounds and produce a song. I’m not convinced that these products have the depth or impact to be still popular a few years from now. There are only a few composers such as ARR, VB etc who manage the balance between producing a hit album and actually trying to keep the songs relevant to the film. In most cases, as songs become hits, new ones are served up which relegate the previous ones to the bin. This truly is the fast-food age of music!!
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Shankar
August 4, 2009
I’ve liked Suresh Wadkar too…one of the earliest songs I loved in his voice was “Aye Zindagi” which IMO was even better (or apt) than SPB’s velvety version. Maybe I just liked the original more.
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brangan
August 5, 2009
Shankar: Reg. “I’m not convinced that these products have the depth or impact to be still popular a few years from now…” Aw, come on, man. Surely you’re not going to become snobbish about pop music (that exists for the thrilling moment) versus, oh, Timeless Melody Crafted For The Ages (or whatever pompous term applies). The whole point of music by the likes of Pritam and Harris is that it’s so much fun when you first catch a hold of it. Isn’t it enough that when “Chor Bazari” plays in the theatre, you’re left with a silly, happy grin on your face? Who cares whether you remember the songs twenty years later? And in any case, don’t we have enough music directors who’ve given us enough immortal classics? Have some… fun, dude 🙂
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Virginia
August 5, 2009
Interrupting my reading of comments to comment on #31, about the Harvey project – WHY??!!?? is right – that movie was/is so much an artifact of a time and place, it’s so much about a particular kind of mid-century American East Coast suburban existential despair, expressed in alcoholism and whimsy, and as a movie (or play) just skittering along the edge of suicide-inducing preciosity. What can they be thinking?
You need a repressed society to be talking to and about – no kidding, we don’t have one any more!!
Who wants to put money on Adam Sandler?
Okay back to Aaj Kal (which I like too).
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Virginia
August 5, 2009
As to Love Aaj Kal, I like the theme we’re handed to ponder, about romance of the past versus romance of today. By a nice coincidnce, I just saw Wong Kar-Wai talking on a dvd interview about the same thing, re: In The Mood For Love, set in the 60s.
I liked the intlligence of Imtiaz Ali’s script. For one big obvious thing, the decision made by Jai and Meera to conclude their romance is emotionally respectable as presented, rather than just being some kind of straw-man patently wrong move. At the same time, we of course settle in happily to see how it’s going to get subverted.
Not on your page on one score, though – I think this kind of movie, in any language, calls for mega-wattage star power, and though I think Ranvir and Konkona are great actors, I want to see more glam in a rom-com, or I’ll feel deprived, especially one like this which is about The Love Story, as well as being about these love stories.
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Bala
August 5, 2009
On a side track , how about an article on movies which you felt have not aged well ?Was reading this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/24/worst-best-films-ever-made
and badly written and argued though it is , it’s a fun read 😀
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Saleheen
August 5, 2009
I don’t really get all the complaints about Deepika’s acting. Granted, she doesn’t crackle with the kind of exuberant onscreen energy that Kareena had in Jab We Met and that is prized in mainstream actresses, but she has a “theraav”, a maturity and levelheadedness that works well for her character. It’s not great acting, but it’s a likeable and watchable performance. And though I had issues with Saif looking a bit old for the part, I couldn’t think of any other contemporary actor for this role – well, maybe Abhay Deol.
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Saleheen
August 5, 2009
By the way, isn’t Ranvir practically the same age as Saif? He doesn’t look like a spring chicken, at any rate. 🙂
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brangan
August 5, 2009
Bala: Slightly shocking that he thinks films like “Jules et Jim” are bad. (I saw it again for this week’s Part of the Picture, by the way.) And “Red” IMO is simply one of the greatest movies ever made. But where I’ll agree is that “Shawshank Redemption” is insanely overrated. (All that treacly philosophising in Morgan St. Freeman’s voice. Shudder!) That film does very little for me. So too “Green Mile”. Can’t see the fuss.
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Bala
August 5, 2009
Well considering that he has no solid arguments for most of his choices (his favorite seems to be “nothing happens “) , I am not taking his opinion too seriously 😀 And treacly philosophizing certainly sounds better when in Morgan Freeman’s voice than say Tom Hanks,doesn’t it ?:D
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Shankar
August 5, 2009
Baddy, I’m all for having fun and didn’t intend to say that I don’t enjoy the soundtracks by these new music directors. I was just remarking that the pleasure is more fleeting in this case… 🙂
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Rahul
August 5, 2009
Brangan, I think it could be a case of a European movie sensibility over an American\English one. I had an argument with someone who did not get whats so special about “Bicycle Thief” or “La Strada”. What can I say! One can argue for hours but in the end if you don’t like it its not the thing for you.
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Karthik
August 5, 2009
Rangan – Great Review. Was just wondering if your likeness for movies is relative – as you see duds piling up alongside, it doesnt get hard to like ones that are quite less flawed than others but at the same feel a lot better?
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brangan
August 5, 2009
Rahul: Are you referring to Love Aaj Kal?
Karthik: But it’s always relative, no? For instance, if you have two movies to review and you watch the bad one first and then the good one, then the good one appears better than it would have seemed had you seen it alone. This isn’t a science. It’s a highly individualistic, imprecise, idiosyncratic, mood-dependent, time-dependent thing I do.
And besides, what is “flawed” anyway? Isn’t that such an absolute word? A diamond is flawed if you can see a blemish in it, but how would you hold up a movie to the light to single out its flaws? It all depends on you, right — how *you* reacted to the film while watching it? It’s always relative dude. Always.
Never read a critic to know if the movie is any good. Read him or her only to know what he or she thought of it.
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Rahul
August 5, 2009
I was referring to the article that was talking about Jules Et Jim, Red etc.
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Shalini
August 5, 2009
BR, is LAK worth $20 and leaving the kid with a babysitter? Hate to put you on the spot like this, but I’m so out of touch with current Hindi films that I need some “expert” advice.
Thanks for the link to the J vs. G article. Good to know that all Gulzar fans aspire to is for their man to be rated higher than the likes of Javed Akhtar. 😀
No wonder the Sahir comparison fell flat – I was aiming to high. 8-D
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brangan
August 6, 2009
Shalini: I’m not getting into whether it’s “worth” it, but it’s a very low-key movie (in a good way) and I suppose it won’t lose much on TV. (I suspect it might even play better.)
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Anjali
August 6, 2009
It shows the difference between the old culture and modern culture, but I like old culture than the modern culture
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arun verma
August 7, 2009
Shalini : No, it isn’t worth it! 🙂
LAK is a “sellout” movie for Imtiaz Ali – I refer to ‘sellout’ as a term for filmmakers for promised gutsier/realistic cinema but ended up giving glossy/commercially-moulded flicks.
Shaad Ali made a sellout film in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. Shimit Amin’s chak de india was his sellout movie. You could argue that Anurag basu sold out in Metro. Kabir khan also sold out for New York.
Abbas-mastan and priyadarshan sold out very early in their promising careers. Was Sajjanpur a sellout movie for Benegal sir?
Here is hoping that Sriram Raghavan, Anurag Kashyap, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Bhardawaj, Abbas Tyrewala, Dibakar banerjee, Rajat kapoor etc won’t sell out and take indian cinema to newer heights.
The Akhtars, Hirani and to some extent Mani Ratnam straddle the fine line quite well and deliver artistic and honest but commercial cinema finally.
PS: RGV ‘sold out’ about 10 years ago as well but in a different sense – only catering to a world where he is the audience himself 🙂
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SK
August 7, 2009
Well to cut it short i liked it especially d scene when saif msgs deepika.he has done it “sasse pehle tumhe bata raha hoon”….n she lookin up d mirror to c her face dat she isnt smiling anymore…grimaces, checks he face n figure to make sure she doeant look less beautiful n moves on!
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Aman
August 8, 2009
Loved the Saif moment immediately before ‘Twist’ started, where Rishi Kapoor and Saif are sitting and talking where he asks, “Ek saal ho gaya tha aap ko aur Harleen ji ko, tab tak kuch hua nahi tha?”
And the end of that scene where Saif says something like … “main chhod sakta hoon, kyunki zindagi badalti rahegi. Aur wo kisi se milegi, uska haath pakdegi, wo use touch karega… wo sab to hoga hi…. zindagi badalti rehti hai aur hum uske saath badalte rehte hain.” Saif is becoming quite an actor.
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Ankur
August 8, 2009
This is probably the first time after I started analyzing movies critically that I have come across a Hindi movie so divisive. People have either absolutely loved it or absolutely hated it.
Interesting, and good for the industry.
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fillum
August 8, 2009
Ranbir kapoor, great actor. GOre kalyug aa pada hai.
What ji? No end to hype? Slowly this become fact for this rviewr and the fans. What bunch of self-claimed great cinema fans. Ranbir kapor gret actor, wtf?
I will burst and die now.
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vijay
August 8, 2009
“Aw, come on, man. Surely you’re not going to become snobbish about pop music (that exists for the thrilling moment) versus, oh, Timeless Melody Crafted For The Ages (or whatever pompous term applies).”
How would you feel if you were served up an endless list of films exactly like Jab we Met or Santosh subramaniam from beginning to end? I guess thats what Shankar is going thru 🙂
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vijay
August 8, 2009
I think Shawshank redemption is not that overrated.
As a feel-good movie Redemption works for a lot of ppl, thanks in part to great acting. It has gained fans over the years gradually.
Remember it lost to Forrest freaking Gump that year at the Oscars. Even Quiz show was much better. And then you had Pulp Fiction too losing out.
And Bala thanks for that link. Those are the type of columns I wanted BR to write once upon a time. The so-called classics which we hate 🙂
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brangan
August 8, 2009
Ankur: Delhi-6 too split people neatly down the love-hate middle. So too JBJ.
vijay: I’m not saying it’s a bad movie. But “No. 1” on the IMDb Top-100? That’s rich! (Even given the subjectivity of movie-watching, yadda, yadda.)
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Vijay
August 8, 2009
But if the tomatometer at Rottentomatoes can offer any redemption :-), then we have Quiz show at 96%
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/quiz_show/
followed by Shawshank at 87% and Gump at 72%. Not bad.
BR , another writeup which I thought of was a list of movies which you had maybe dismissed hastily at the beginning only to realize later after re-views and contemplation that they were good stuff . I guess it happens to all critics. Do you ave any such list? Maybe you can write about it someday.And explain the thought process of why you thought that way the first time around.
For instance, sometime back I remembered Ebert or some other critic writing about how he had dismissed Groundhog day as some fluffy romcom initially but later realized how well it was put together or something like that.
I have a feeling that your list would be a little longer if you made that list on World cinema rather than Tamil/Hindi films.
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Vijay
August 8, 2009
BR, IMDB is a fan-based site I think, isnt it? Even Dark Knight was No.1 there for sometime. Your average fan likes a well-made feel good movie. That could explain Shawshank’s sustained popularity unless there is some serious rigging going on. Also blame it on lots of national TV re-runs in the US.
I too don’t think that it is a masterpiece or anything like that, even though I like watching it anytime it is on. I can understand the popularity amongst fans though. But most famous critics and writers don’t have it in their top 10.
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Anuradha
August 8, 2009
Very nicely written… what I found refreshing in this film was the non-melodramatic heroine. I actually liked the slow pace too!
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brangan
August 9, 2009
Aman:(SPOILER ALERT) Yeah, that scene and the one during the wedding are the two times Saif gets to really shine — when, despite himself, he feels stuff that he thinks he has no business feeling. I didn’t enjoy his lighter scene as much, but in his heavier scenes he was damn good.
And in that wedding scene, you know what I liked? It’s not that he instantly says, “Don’t worry about me. Main theek hoon, etc. etc.” and goes onto mine emotions his character never knew he felt before storming away. It’s that we never really learn why Meera asked to see him in the first place 🙂 All we have is the calm look on Deepika’s face and Saif’s outburst. But why did she arrange the meeting? Ah! 🙂
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Maxine
August 11, 2009
Ah!?! This is EXACTLY the problem – so much about this film is pointless. WHY did she arrange the meeting? WHY did she then go on to marry someone when she KNEW she had strong feelings for someone else (who also had feelings for her)? WHY was Jai even at the wedding? WHY did they act like stroppy 2 year olds for the entire film? WHY put people who care about you through the wringer just for the sake of a POINTLESS, juvenile game you’re playing with your ‘ex’? And WHY, oh why, oh why, did I waste my time and money seeing this dreadful movie with characters I couldn’t bring myself to give a toss about??? Why, oh why, oh WHYYY?????
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Dipika
August 11, 2009
Saif’s well-played nervous monologue at the wedding is one of the reasons I could suspend disbelief about his advancing years. Also, I’m regrettably too used to 40+ actors pretending to be cool 25 year olds.
On the other hand imagine what Abhay Deol could’ve done with the same scene! He has the neurotic over-thinking modern man down pat. Plus Saif Ali Khan carries the baggage of having played the womanizer too many times. This character is more a serial monogamist – he’s had relationships that lasted more than 6 months.
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Dipika
August 11, 2009
Wasn’t Jai and Meera’s first kiss in the garage incredibly awkward? I can imagine things going that way – Jai looking around if someone saw them after their first quick peck – if they were in India not London. And/Or if it was their first kiss ever.
I kept wondering where these characters came from? Did Jai attend boarding school in Britain like Saif Ali Khan himself? But where did he pick up Did Meera grow up in India but studied in College in London? She didn’t have an accent when speaking in English.
Sigh. Its so hard for young Indian characters to be ‘urban’ without trotting all over the globe.
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Dipika
August 11, 2009
(edit)
But where did he pick up his Hinglish lingo?
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Ph
August 13, 2009
The way I see it:
Story line: Not a unique storyline but still refreshingly done.
Actor: Much too old to be cute but at least he can act.
Actress: Much too awkward but thank god shes cute.
Editing: Added value by keeping pace with the storyline.
Rishi Kapoor. *groan*
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raj
August 15, 2009
Ph: atlast someone who doesn’t think that rishi kappoor is a super great spont. natural actor!
Bollywood and its promotion of mediocrity!
One of my learned friends calls rishi kappoor bollywood sivakumar. That’s what he is. Tamil film fans don’t rate sivakumar high. The fact that the average bollywood fan places a halo on kappoor’s head doesn’t speak much good about bollywood – it just shows that its full of self-propelling hype!
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abhishek
August 16, 2009
just one thing…I don’t think Ranveer could have done better than Saif. Of course Konkana would have done far better justice to the role of Meera. And yes, Saif really looked like a sardar with all the mannerism in the right place. Dont know how many sardar friends u have but Ranveer as sardar is a big no 😦
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the mad momma
September 6, 2009
but..but.. but doesnt everyone invite exes to the wedding?! even those you havent found closure with?!
on a different note, i think Ranbir would have been a better person to cast opposite her. Saif did look too old. and i dont know why, but i really am sick of Abhay doing the roles he does. or maybe i’m just shallow and dont think he’s cute enough!
and finally @ Raj and Anand – i dont get the need for such a venomous dialogue against the “bollywood promotion of mediocrity” venom. chill, dude! why create such divides? its still all Indian cinema !
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the mad momma
September 6, 2009
PS: also I did think Ranbir should have played the young rishi kapoor. the features would have matched and it just looked silly to have saif play a younger rishi as well as himself.
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Shammi
October 4, 2009
sigh. for the first time i found your review going completely against what i felt when i saw it. i haven’t seen such a blah movie for so long – and especially after JWM and SNT which were so effortless. there was zilch chemistry between the leads and the movie was so disjointed and jerky. i thought i felt lousy with the movie – now i realize i feel lousier that i am so out of sync with your review, which means i can’t rely on you anymore to point me to a good one. sigh.
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Bill
November 20, 2009
Of all the reviews I read for the film yours is the best. You got the film. I felt that this was a braver film than JWM and the nuances of the characters were more subtle. You capture them beautifully in this review. I thought Deepika was a great cast. She has a problem with delivery which suited her character. She is smart, graceful and hardly ever ‘dramatic’-which is a good thing for the character she plays. Once again I congratulate you for your writing and great eye for details. This is the first of your reviews that I have read and it has been a pleasure.
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nikkie1602
April 4, 2019
A random train of thought brought me to this review. And now can’t stop grinning at this :
“Plus, he’s really the last actor you’d cast as a Sardar”
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