Business, meets spirited Alizeh ( Anushka Sharma) at a London nightclub, and the two become fast friends. Ayan wants to be more than pals, but he respects the fact that Alizeh is pining for the one that got away, a hot EDM DJ called Ali ( Fawad Khan) . When Alizeh gets the chance to make things right with Ali, Ayan acts the perfect platonic friend, giving her a shoulder to cry on and even showing up as a welcome guest at her lavish Rajasthan wedding.
In an attempt to get over the loss, the heartbroken Ayan hooks up with Saba, a gorgeous poet he meets in a first-class airline lounge ( Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, in a welcome bit of casting) — but he soon starts to understand true human connection transcends the labels of friendship and love.
Director-writer-producer Johar is calling Ae Dil Hai Mushkil his “most grown-up film yet, ” but if these characters are any indication, the concept of grown-up responsibility hasn’t really caught on chez Johar: trust fund baby Ayan is given to moping around London rooftops in his Yeezys; Alizeh passes the time in an endless progression of nightclubs and silent discos; and even the brainy Saba has no visible means of support for her splashed-out Vienna hideaway — unless poetry is a hot new career path I wasn’t aware of.
The story follows the adventures of a handful of Indian-origin singles: Ayan ( Ranbir Kapoor) , an artistic type who’d rather be singing than working in the family business, meets spirited Alizeh ( Anushka Sharma) at a London nightclub, and the two become fast friends. Ayan wants to be more than pals, but he respects the fact that Alizeh is pining for the one that got away, a hot EDM DJ called Ali ( Fawad Khan) . When Alizeh gets the chance to make things right with Ali, Ayan acts the perfect platonic friend, giving her a shoulder to cry on and even showing up as a welcome guest at her lavish Rajasthan wedding.
In an attempt to get over the loss, the heartbroken Ayan hooks up with Saba, a gorgeous poet he meets in a first-class airline lounge ( Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, in a welcome bit of casting) — but he soon starts to understand true human connection transcends the labels of friendship and love.
Director-writer-producer Johar is calling Ae Dil Hai Mushkil his “most grown-up film yet, ” but if these characters are any indication, the concept of grown-up responsibility hasn’t really caught on chez Johar: trust fund baby Ayan is given to moping around London rooftops in his Yeezys; Alizeh passes the time in an endless progression of nightclubs and silent discos; and even the brainy Saba has no visible means of support for her splashed-out Vienna hideaway — unless poetry is a hot new career path I wasn’t aware of.
Johar is also relying on timeworn tropes that have outstayed their welcome — such as meta-references to his own films and songs, and by-now-predictable “surprise” guest appearances by top Bollywood stars including Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt ( and what sounds a lot like an uncredited Priyanka Chopra in a voiceover) . When one of the characters is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, eyes will roll rather than tear up.
Despite the iffy script, two of the film’s performances pack a punch — Ranbir Kapoor, as always graceful and expressive, lives in his character, conveying a young man’s confusion and unrequited love with an honest, heartbreaking gaze. The youngest in a long line of Hindi film royalty ( his father is Rishi Kapoor, whom the younger Kapoor even spoofs in a hilltop song sequence) , Kapoor also invests his lipsynced onscreen songs with real passion. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan glows onscreen, seeming to relish this role of an irresistible beauty with a take-charge approach to sex.
Anushka Sharma seems to be trying too hard to be breezy, but Fawad Khan — a Pakistani heartthrob whose casting is an ongoing source of controversy given India’s current hair-trigger tensions with its neighbor — adds a rooted presence to his role.