Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna: The review

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Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna: **

The whole idea behind this movie is supremely interesting. I said supremely interesting because I have grown up with Bollywood dictating quite a lot of my personal fantasies one of which, I unashamedly admit, is that someone somewhere is made for me. Yes, for someone who was a die-hard Madhuri Dixit fan at an impressionable age of 12, everything the dame uttered in Dil To Pagal Hai was gospel.

Ten years on and whenever alone, I still toy with the thought that I really will bump into that person who’s perfect for me in every way and who finds me adorable enough to complete her as well. I still like that thought for all its fantastical, rosy delusions that really saves me from long hours of self-pity; yet the cynical b*stard in me, of late, has been quick to poke out his head everytime I dwell on that wondrous thought of mine and ask me ‘what if my wait turns out to be too long?. And I plan to go ahead with an arranged marriage (which, hypothetically is a passionless affair) and then, horror of horrors, bump into my “godsend soulmate”? Would I then be selfish enough to dump my family and follow my heart? Will my doing so be a selfish act or a brave one? Do I sacrifice my commitment for my desires? Very difficult questions and it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who was irked by them as, this film being proof enough, one of nation’s biggest film-makers was actually busy concocting a brew with solely these nagging questions as the dominant flavour.

But despite such a fudamental connection with its basic premise, KANK failed to impress me. To say that it fell flat is actually more like it. The good part really is that for naive, unmarried singletons like me, it does give an easy answer out *spoiler alert* of actually follow your leaping heart and let your marriage rot in hell. The bad part really is that the scene which is supposed to be this ultimate denouement to the tangled relationship mess, you know that final redeeming moment when the star-crossed lovers finally get to hold their hands and share the passion-filled hug, I just found myself muttering “You two losers really deserve each other”. Yes, you read it right. I said losers. And not because the two people in question (Rani’s and SRK’s characters) stomped over their marriage and then went ahead with each other but because what really is wrong in their respective marriages never filters through.

You have scenes where Rani’s character, Maya, would whine on and on about how her husband Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan) isn’t adult enough to understand her innermost feelings. But never once do you see Rishi giving her a proper cold shoulder or anything that really registers a lack of communication. There’s this one sequence where he playfully starts the hoover while she starts yapping about what a kid he is, but that just isn’t enough. What does register is Rishi’s valiant attempts to share a few laughs, dances and kisses with Maya which she’s only too uptight and la-di-da to be party to. You see Maya being a drama queen and stomping out of a party when all Rishi wants is to shake a leg with her. Given her cold-fish routine almost everywhere, its no surprise that Rishi loses it and snaps at her. But even after the showdown, the guy’s gentleman enough to strive even harder (he plans a long weekend for some serious adult “discussions” that his wife keeps on whimpering about). And how does Maya respond? She rushes to her newfound loverboy (SRK as Dev Saran) and gives him a cute peck on the cheek apologising for not responding to his calls.

Its the same story in the other marriage in question. The fact that SRK’s Dev Saran is such a criminally cynical man, it actually is even more of a mystery how Zinta’s forthright Rhea has tolerated him for 4 long years and managed to raise a kid with him as well. So right from the very first scene when Rhea congratulates Dev for bagging a $5 million contract and tells him she’s happy that his dream is slowly getting realised on the phone, you have this misanthropic creature on the other end of the line poking her left, right and centre for being always so unconcerned about his victories reducing her almost to tears. You know from that very scene where your sympathy lies. Ditto for the argument where Rhea is compelled to tell Dev who wears the pants in the house as just the mere mention of “I’d have to move to London if I am to accept the promotion” by her sends him into a “you are a selfish woman” whine mode (when in actual fact Rhea has refused the promotion for their marriage and kid). But however well written this showdown sequence might be, the background score and camera is always focussed on SRK’s Dev trying to extract some sympathy for him for no reason at all.

There are actually a whole barrage of scenes which hit all the wrong notes and really make the film’s case even worse with every passing minute. For on one hand you have a film-maker who’s trying so hard to convey the pleasantness and the sudden voluptuousness of true love that’s engulfed the philandering twosome, and on other hand, you, the audience who have full sympathies with Rishi and Rhea really want to shake Maya and Dev hard to wake up to their respective spouses’ advances. Some scenes where you really wince hard as the camera is busy romanticising Maya and Dev’s romance are:

***The scene where Dev tells Maya that its been 4 years he’s been stalking her, fantasising about her and blah blah. By the background crescendoes and SRK’s teary-eyed, jerky speech clearly we are supposed to laud this secret voyeurism or something. The thought that crosses one’s mind, instead, is that as if this guy wasn’t pathetic enough to have the hots for someone else while he sowed his seed in his unsuspecting wife, he actually goes miles ahead in being despicable and manipulative enough to first use friendship as a tool (with a pretence of saving his hottie’s, i.e. Maya’s marriage) only to hit hard on Maya when she’s going through the lowest phase in her marriage and when he can’t take anymore of his wife’s professional success. Its the stuff sick losers do.

***Then there’s another repulsively written sequence where Dev takes his wife Rhea to the same ballet that Maya takes Rishi too. Sat on opposite balconies, a competition of sorts ensues between Dev and Maya where they start coochie-cooing with their spouses. Unsurprisingly enough, the madly-in-love-with-his-wife Rishi starts repsonding with necking and pecking Maya which, on the opposite balcony sends Dev reeling red with envy. So envious is he, that he makes sure he books a room with Maya at the hotel the very next day and f*cks her.

If the clever dialogue in the arguments are anything to go by, the writers are fully aware of the obscenity at play but under the umbrella of “true love” and Bollywood branded melodrama, they keep throwing one inane situation on another thinking at some point they’d be able to make us empathise with Dev and Maya. But all in vain.

So you have an audience who’s continuously optimistic that the married couples here will get together considering their teeny-weeny ego-issues aren’t such a big deal that Dev and Maya make them, but it takes one scene of hearing the hollow arguments and empty talk of Dev and Maya in their respective showdowns with Rhea and Rishi plus their totally inappropriate tantrums that you really lose it with this film and realise that the writer has sworn hard on making us gulp a lot more on face-value alone.

Does the incompatibility between the two couples register convincingly? No. Do we ever get to know the reasons why Dev and Maya are so bitter about Rhea and Rishi, when the latter two, despite being in the very same situation are striving to make the marriage work? No. Does the change that this supposed “true love” bring to Dev and Maya convincing? No (this whole part has really been dragged so long with songs etc, and yet Rani-SRK chemistry just fails to light up the screen). Making one really wonder aloud, what Dev’s and Maya’s problems really are. Why the hell can’t they get a hold on themselves and start caring for partners who love them so deeply?

So inspite of becoming a film that gets its point across about how relieving walking out of failed relationships sometimes is, KANK becomes a film that is hell-bent on first, romanticising extra-marital affairs; second, mocking at the whole loyalty and commitment angle of a marriage (yes, SRK’s Dev is seen uttering “After all family is family” with a very distasteful sarcasm everytime he’s parting with Maya), and finally by taking an expedient of time leap it relegates broken marriages and families as non-issues and in its own sick way justifies the extra-marital affairs (so much so that the victimised spouses themselves are ready to move on and egg on the star-crossed lovers meet—the scene where Rhea herself says “tumhara pyaar intezaar kar rahaa hai, use rok lo” was the last straw for me).

I’d hack this film’s shoddily treated concept to pieces all day long but there are some things which work in the film’s favour.

For once, the humour is very well done. The director might have messed up bigtime when it comes to writing a story around a bold theme, but the humour is bold, it minces no words and done pretty tastefully (just as good as any of your Friends or Will & Grace episodes). Its quite a relief to finally see people on the big screen having a laugh about sex just like we all do and all the silly cockups and coincidences really are genuinely funny. Even though its quite bizarre how quickly the intimacy between Dev and Maya escalates, so much so that they are found giving each other tips on good sex publicly (there’s this scene where Maya takes Dev to this furniture showroom and she starts to unbutton him right there and then — just to teach him how to be intimate with Rhea — elicited more of a “get a hold on yourself lady, he’s married” than a “how sweet of her” reaction from me), yet how they botch it up in the subsequent scenes is howlarious.

Given how pathetic their respective characters are, Rani and Shahrukh, despite infusing a lot of credibility end up being an eye-sore. Rani’s never looked so stunning before and in the ditty “Tumhi Dekho Na”, with every sari she drapes, she takes many breaths away. And no matter how repugnant and hollering each of his lines on “true love” and “relationships” might be, SRK goes that extra mile to get Dev’s cynical notes right. Its another matter that you see little else than this selfish monster from the first to the last frame, but his cactus sarcasm is well in place. What definitely needed more work was SRK-Rani chemistry which is so integral to the plot and yet so non-existent, it poisons the whole point of the movie. But then again, that’s a botch-up from the script and direction point of view.

Zinta for the first time around gets the raw deal with Mukherji around. Yet, in every scene she’s effective and believable to the core. I think the only one scene where the whole hall cheered was when she slapped SRK’s Dev and told him their marriage’s over. And Abhishek Bachchan, finally pitches in a performance with not a single note wrong. Never a fan of this guy’s acting abilities, his superb portrayal of a troubled husband who’s deeply in love with his stubbornly loveless wife is nuanced and endearingly delivered.

And finally there’s the unsurmountable BigB who’s as much as a blast as the saucy and naughty Sam as he’s affectionate as the paternal Samarjit. He really makes this character quite memorable and one of those two stars I reluctantly awarded to this movie are for all the good time I had when he was on screen. Kirron Kher’s so sincere (yet again), you can touch her and Kajol looks like a million bucks in that 1 minute long appearance in Rock and Roll Soniye. In fact, the very moment the camera rolls away from her to focus on our two leading ladies we suddenly realise how pale and made-up they really are.

I am quite ambivalent about the music as well. The lyrics sit so awkwardly in the sloppy, tediously preachy title track that I remember laughing at it the first time I heard it. Its injection into the film is actually even more bizarre. Long shots of Rani and Shahrukh sashaying about alone in designer outfits with unstoppable glycerine because they have been kicked out of their houses and sob sob, they are missing their romantic partners really are a yawn. For that matter, the very title of the film holds zilch connection with the story and on one or two occassions that it is mentioned, its so sappy, it actually ends up being funny. When “Mitwa” started, only one thought crossed my mind– that a lover of ballet like Maya would rather accompany a friend to a decidedly unmusical football match but throw tantrum if her husband requests her to come to jive a little in a disco. Preity’s and Abhishek’s utter lack of dancing talent make “Where’s the Party Tonight” quite a stretch and with interspersed shots of SRK heating it up with Rani under the covers when their spouses are celebrating away innocently, you really wish the yelling and partying would stop. And how can I forget “Tumhi Dekho Na” which really has such terrific use of colour, both in costumes and set-pieces, its pure eye candy. But like all the other songs, its timing and its duration only add to the cringe factor as the film just fails to conclude itself.

So overall, its really all gone down the drain. All the breathtaking cinematography, crackling humour, splendid Bachchans, super-talented ensemble, some well-written stand-alone sequences (like the one where Preity suddenly joins Rani on a road crossing as SRK waits with flowers for the latter or the one where BigB advises his daughter-in-law Rani to leave Abhishek if she doesn’t love her)— all gone down the drain because the writers couldn’t be bothered to pen some interesting sequences which would convince us of the two protagonists’ angst and their motivations to indulge in an extra-marital affair.

Yes, the dynamics of marriage as an institution have radically changed in this decade, and there often really isn’t anything as liberating than walking out of a failed marriage. But where KANK fails is in just subjecting its audience to big words and sermons on relationships. The film just doesn’t have a convincing storyline to drive the point home, not to forget the characterisation and the director’s intentions (like over-focussing on SRK and Rani) which are all over the place, plus there’s little or no spark between the “lovers” and its just too bloody long for no reason. Clearly, in his excitement of finding something “bold” and saying it in a 50 crore film with a huge starcast, Mr Karan Johar has forgotten the very basics of making an entertaining, naturally flowing movie. What a pity!

PS: Its quite ironical that the lone scene that’s been lifted from a very recent Hollywood take on extra-marital affairs– Mike Nichols’ Closer (Abhi asking Rani if SRK was a good f*ck just like what Owen subjected Julia Roberts to in the original)– is many notches dumbed down verbally, when on the whole it even leaves Hollywood and its moralistic take gasping desperately for breath. We Indians really are heating it up in the fast lane. Or so would Mr Johar have everyone else believe!