Confession: It’s my guilty pleasure. I’m a sucker for
emotionally swirling dramas which unaccountably extract catharctic tears in the
dark of the auditorium. I’m almost in a delirium, and
writer-director-sentimentalist Karan Johar has often (not always) done this to
me. Can share the pain he dredges up for his gallery of protagonists whose heartbeats
drum up a graph of kabhi love, kabhi obsessive compulsive disorders.
Truth be told I was alternately moved – here’s the downside
– and alternately boggled on watching Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. The first-half of
this 158-minuter kept me enthralled by its tongue-in-chic candour, the sophisticated
update on the funky youthful spirit, and
the vulnerable aspects of Ayaan (Ranbir Kapoor) and Alizeh (Anushka Sharma).
She has already split from the love of her life Deejay Ali (Fawad Khan) and
he’s in the midst of a sort of , far from serious live-in relationship.
Meeting up at one of those uber cool parties, somewhere out
there in London, Alizeh hauls him into a
kissing session. “You’re a lousy kisser,” is her verdict. Ouchee. Ayaan is
clean bowled, this girl’s different, daft and daring. Commences a playful
friendship, a hopover to Paris (in the private jetplane owned by Ayaan’s dad,
no less), where proverbially the bees, the birds and all tend to fall in love.
Oui oui tres romantique so far. But hell’s bells, the girl says no sex please,
suggesting a Platonic liasion. Merde!
Ulp, Ayaan a budding musican who considers himself to be a
potential Mohammed Rafi, gulps but grins and bears it. Cut to a nightclub
reunion with that aforecited Deejay, and the plot screeches to a halt as a
speeding car would on a busy highway. Alizeh and Deejay go through a nikhaah in
Lucknow, right before the eyes of the Platonic buddy. Weeps he, sings a song
he, and threatens he to crush his heart with a handy flower pot in the bride’s
chamber.
Although this sounds far-out implausible, this section of Ae
Dil Hai Muskhkil compels you to share Ayaan’s despair and anguish. Your eyes
moist, Alizeh please don’t do this to a young man who adores you to tiny
pieces. Are you blind? Are you heartless?, you want to ask her. So much fabulous frisson and fierce friction
going on. Intermission.
Wow, Karan Johar has grabbed the audience – or at least me –
by the collar, I beamed. Post-intermission, though, my smiles and tears
diminished. Enter Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, far too put-on for comfort), a
femme fatale who writes Urdu poetry and reads her verses out loud before an
expressionless gathering in Vienna. Really.
Femme Fatale, you see, has separated formally from her artist husband
(yaaay, Shah Rukh Khan, elocuting profound dialogue of the metaphorical kind),
Blink, he’s gone. Thank you.
So the bedroom trysts between Ayaan with the older woman
continue till huh, Alizeh fetches up for a threesome, dinner that is. The
dinner is super-tense. No one eats the bread offered. Upset, poetess poetically
gives our Ayaan the marching orders. Meanie beanie. An inadvertent touch of
misogyny is apparent. Come on ladies, give love and the Richie Rich-cum- perfectly
adorable Ayaan a chance, won’t you? Not fair.
Soon enough, poetess vanishes too. So now what to do? A
malignant villain (not a human being is all I can hint) pops up, and you know
where the rest of the toothpick-thin plot is heading. I’m no longer beaming.
The dialogue by Johar-Niranjan Iyengar is pretty punchy and
lined with humour, except for lines such as, “Dard ko dard dhoondh leta hai”
(Pain has the knack of finding pain). Sorry, can’t quite get that. The
allusions – call them tributes if you like – to vintage Bollywood movies as
well as those from the Dharma Productions vaults – are fun.
Note especially the vignettes from Guide, Chandni, a mention
of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and the remix of the title song of Evening in Paris. Fine, terrific zap and zing. But when this
references continue like an elongated monsoon – down pours an R D Burman medley
– it becomes too much of a good thing.
Incidentally, a thought kept nagging me – aren’t the bare
bones of the story – forget the femme fatale -- quite evocative of Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar? Also
pray, where have all the parents of the lead characters gone? They’re turned
invisible. En passant it is suggested there have been issues with the elders,
but that’s it.
On the upside, Pritam’s inspired music score and Anil
Mehta’s eye-caressing photography (fast becoming extinct in the Bollywood
mainstream) are super-positive assets.
Also, there can be absolutely no argument about Karan
Johar’s distinct specialty of extracting bravura performances from his crew of
actors.
Lisa Haydon, as a hoity-toity Londoner, is screamingly funny
with her flair for comic timing.
Anushka Sharma, assigned a role of complexity, is
unwaveringly excellent. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil belongs to her, yes, but above all
to Ranbir Kapoor who glides smoothly through the entire
vocabulary of emotionally-powerful acting: from anxiety to bliss and from
vulnerability to resilience. He makes you care.
Bottomline: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is surely worth the price of
a ticket even if the path towards love is strewn with speedbreakers in the
second-half.
Thumbnail Image Source: youtube/foxstarhindi