Hi All!
A lot is being said about Karan Johar’s latest film KANK. Pardon me, but I could not resist inking a few thoughts on MS.
For one, I think some friends are taking the movie too seriously... Simran, if you are reading this, my thoughts are inspired by your review today.
Relationships are strange and as the world moves forward, they are becoming stranger. Perhaps we still do not understand love, within and outside a "marriage".
Infact, every single Hindi movie revolves around love and marriage... rich girl - poor guy cannot "marry" because her parents don’t approve... upto the climax. Then they live happily ever after. Even multiplex films like Home Delivery and (more recently) Pyar Ke Side Effects touch the base theme of "marriage".
But most of them (if not all) have dealt with only issues of love upto the time of tying the knot. What happens next is left to the imagination of the viewer. Saathiya was a classic exception. Again, love prevailed over everything else. A naughty movie like No Entry portrayed men to be looking for an affair outside their "marriage", however happy and satisfying it may be.
On that front, I think, Karan Johar has taken a step (and a bold one at that) forward. KANK begins where most movies end.
Dev (SRK) is a famous sportsman, on the rise in his career. But fate has other things in store for him. His wife Rhea (Preity) is busy with her career growth and is not around at times (both good and bad) when Dev needs her the most.
On the other hand is Maya (Rani) who initially is confused at why she is marrying Rishi (Abhishek). Is she marrying him in return for all that his family did for her after her parents’ demise? Perhaps she had dreams of romantically meeting a soul mate but never thought it would be Rishi?
When Dev and Maya meet after three years (of their one and only meeting on Maya’s wedding day), they are both alone and harassed by circumstances. They seek companionship in each other and start off being comrades trying to help each other patch up with their respective spouses. Then comes the point of romance. The much cliched bollywood line of the 1990’s "ek ladka aur ek ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte" has played heavily on Karan’s mind. So much so that he has treated 4 larger than life characters in a very common, every day way. Could he not have kept the story line to Dev and Maya just being friends and the world misunderstanding them? Now that’s something Karan alone can answer. And I give him credit for his treatment because it is his point of view. Ofcourse he has gone overboard with the theater and hotel scenes... .probably sleazy too! Commercial considerations perhaps....
But when you are looking at a story line where two people are emotionally involved outside their marriage, what do you think they would do? Ofcourse, they would try and hide it from their spouses for as long as they could... call it cheating if you like. This situation is similar to the days when the heroine (say Saira Bano) would return home after a date with her boy friend (say Manoj Kumar) at 7 pm and try to get in from the window so her parents would not know she has got in late. Even when she was caught she would say "main apni saheli ke janamdin par gai thi..." Lovers tend to hide their relationship for as long as they can. It is human behaviour. In KANK they are in an extra-ordinary situation because they fear not their parents, but their respective spouses. And when the parents (or in this case the spouses) find out, all hell does break loose. How many films do you recollect where the strict father instantly agrees to his ladli daughter’s choice?... until the climax that is. In KANK too, forgiveness comes with time.
Some movies are simply likable, some are plain unlikeable. The problem with KANK is that every person who sees it, has his/ her own opinion of it. If I were to write the climax, Rhea would forgive Dev. Rishi would forgive Maya. They would all live happily ever after. If my better looking half (Shveta) wrote the climax, the movie would end with Rishi and Maya getting back together, Rhea living with her son and mother-in-law and Dev in love with yet another Divya, Sharmila, Shruti or Kirti......
All in all, lets not take credit away from Karan Johar for telling a story he wanted to. He had commercial obligations to fulfull, which he did beautifully.... in terms of music, sets, decor..... The drawback, is the setting of the film. It should have been shot in LA or some other US city (ofcourse setting it in India would have been hara kiri) not in New York. The setting looked so inspired by Kal Ho Na Ho, that at some point I started missing Saif.
SRK, Abhishek, Rani, Preity, Kiron Kher, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have all done a good job. But yet again, the man who steals the show is Amitabh Bachan. Amazing timing, style and sensitivity. He is boystrous yet caring, naughty yet clear headed, all in one frame. Hats off to a 60 year old man, who can pull off any character with the same zeal as he did 30 years ago. I specially liked the one liners like "Dad, what did you have for breakfast?".... "I don’t remember her name"...
All in all, KANK is a different movie.... but a movie after all. Enjoy it while you watch it. But don’t take it too seriously. And if you can’t watch it with your spouse or partner, then you must not watch it at all.