What I also want is the heightened emotions and the messy love you-hate you-can’t live without you moments that he manages to create in his most felt work. He has to make me feel enough so I can keep the glitter at bay.
Ae Dil Hai Mushkil scores high on the first count. You can’t get better-looking actors than Ranbir Kapoor-Aishwarya Rai Bachchan-Anushka Sharma-Fawad Khan. You can’t get more atmospheric cities than London and Paris, ohhh. And instead of New York, there’s Vienna. So far, all slurp worthy.
But Johar is unable to go the extra mile it in the other department, leaving you wanting both more and less: less of the incessant yak-yak(you want to tell these impeccably-styled people to stop and draw breath and then speak, so that they, and we, can absorb the moment they’ve created), less of the non-stop background music(if it is real, you don’t have to underline it), less of the frantic reaching for the next old Bollywood classic line or song(because too many of these, and ‘Ae Dil’ is stuffed with these references, makes your brand new film feel same old); and more silence(the most effective parts of the film happen when it’s quiet), and more fresh plot points.