Face you Fears...

I am an extremely infrequent blogger. I suffer from the complex that what I write is just my opinion and why the hell should anyone be interested in it. So I need topics about which I can write from scratch. I mean topics about which you have probably read nothing. This turns out to be a difficult pursuit and so I write rarely. From today onwards, however, I have decided to try and get out of this habit. What am I going to do about it? Well I am going to write about something which I do pretty frequently. I am going to write movie reviews. There are two reasons for this. The first one is pretty obvious I guess, because I will be able to write frequently. The second one is called “facing your fears”. As I fear that people wouldn’t read an article by me if it is not about something new, a film review is hardly what people would be expected to have not heard or read about. So, I am going to acquire a “devil may care attitude”. I will write because I love writing and not because I want people to read what I write. Who knows someday I might just write something worthwhile. The first movie I am going to write about is “Jab we met”. It is this movie that has actually inspired me to do this. Read on to know how (well actually, technically I should not be writing Read on as I don’t care if any one is reading or not but still this is one phrase that I like to use very much, so ….)


Jab we met


I have always considered love stories as balderdash. Apart from DDLJ and Hum Tum, I have never been moved by any love story (happy ones I mean). They are all full of clichés and they are always totally predictable. Love stories suffer from the very big problem that you know the end even before the film has begun. So the story teller can not rely on suspense. It is his narration which must be strong. Fortunately after about 3 years (Hum Tum released in 2004), we have a love story which scores well in this test.
Not once in the 2 hours and 23 minutes does director Imtiaz Ali lose hold of his story. His comic timing is perfect and he knows where to leave one thread of the story and begin another. Anyways the threads are few and the story is very simple. But that is a huge plus point of this film. It does not intend to confuse you but amuse you.

The story is roughly this – Aditya (Shahid Kapur) is a dejected man. His girlfriend is marrying another guy and his company is in doldrums. He doesn’t know what to do and feels completely defeated in life, you know the type. Quite absent mindedly he boards a train going from Bombay to Delhi. On that train he meets Geet (Kareena Kapoor), a full of energy, vivacious chirpy and chatty small town girl who is returning to Bhatinda after completing her education in Bombay. Here begins a tale of unexpected adventures that befall the duo as they do pretty much everything that’s possible – miss trains, evacuate hotels after police raids (the police are trying to bust a prostitution racket), jump into lakes etc. They finally reach Bhatinda, where the girl’s Punjabi family play the perfect hosts to Aditya. Now Geet loves a boy who lives in Manali and is hell bent on marrying him and hence has to run away from home. Aditya runs away with her (he can hardly stay in her house when she has run away) and the family thinks they have eloped together. Aditya then leaves Geet in Manali and goes off to build his life back again. He has learnt a lot from the peppy punjaban (and has actually fallen in love with her) and he goes on to successfully re-establish his business.

This is the point in the story where things take a dramatic turn. Geet’s boyfriend Anshuman refuses to marry her and she can’t return to her family. Aditya takes her back and you know what and how of the story henceforward but mercifully not much is left. Anshuman comes back to claim Geet and provides some fun moments in the story or what is left of it.
All in all it is an extremely enjoyable film with all its jokes being of the highest standard (which is quite difficult to find in these days of excessive toilet humour). Kareena Kapoor excels in the film and Shahid is strangely bearable. In fact he is good most of the times, but just fails to pull off some of the more difficult scenes (These are the scenes least relevant to the film but necessary for continuity so it doesn’t matter much). But that is ok I guess, nothing is perfect. The supporting cast doesn’t get much to do (with Shahid Kapur’s mother not even getting a dialogue, she has to be content with making obscure faces all the time) but still they do what is required of them well (The guy Anshuman looks as anserine as he is supposed to look.)

The songs are however a disappointment. Most of them are not well placed. Still they are not lacking in melody and if you watch the film in a cinema hall I daresay that you will like them. Though not exactly in the same league as the other two films I have mentioned it is still all in all a very good effort and a refreshing change from all sorts of strange stuff being churned out in the name of creativity these days. In true film critic style I will give the film 3.5 stars (out of 5 of course).

P.S -: Most of the readers of my blog have seen the film with me today so I am not expecting many people to read this but still if you do, then I would be extremely happy to hear out what you have got to say. And yes, how this film inspired me to face my fears, just simply by recreating what we all have seen so many times – A love story, and doing that successfully.