Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna-is what director Karan Johar requesting to his loyal audience. They certainly don’t and will come back to you again, Karan provided you give them some concrete, digestible, humane tales rather than far-fetched, half baked, amateurish glimpses of adultery in relationships. Before I am being accused of another one from Karan bashing brigade, I like to clarify that I admire him for nurturing a certain brand of mushy goody-goody cinema, through his-KKHH/ K3G/KHNH, now popularized as Karan Johar Brand of cinema. It is a breakthrough in this increasingly commercialized world of global cinema, where more than film-making craft it is the smart marketing that sells. It certainly has an audience and a sizeable portion of its hugh revenues comes from our nostalgic NRI Audience. Therefore, the problem basically lies in this very fact, as whatever he attempts to do even “different” also has to be within the constraints of his brand of cinema, and this film becomes a victim here, and so is his characters.
The story that fluctuates between two unhappy couples viz. Dev-Ria and Rishi-Maya, where infidelity and adultery in marriages is being dealt, can therefore come across more as a superficial, frivolous and quite forced. The basic plot lacks that motivational factor among married ones which compels them to stray. Worst is all of them realize that their marriage had problems and they need to work on them, then I wonder what stopped them from going to a marriage counselor. Later, these characters were made to look angels by making them confess about their relationship to their respective spouses, bear the brunt of their “sin”, the whole exercise appears as if the characters never grown up from those counterparts of KKHH/K3G, and is much heightened by the same type of dialogues that they speak in film. The situation towards climax too are built around such that the lovers should be united only if others permit and thus makes those two not just weak but also irresponsible ones, though all this is done to gain sympathy for them. You could say that film look for some easy quick-fix balanced solutions towards end. And once again the circumstances looked forced and calculated, rather mechanical.
Whole film is shot in New York, at a lavish scale and cinematographer Anil Mehta shot it quite well. The Songs though are not just a weak factor but come across as surprise items each after every half an hour, whether required or not. All performances though are neat. Your audience will stay back Karan, if next time you give them some flesh and blood, some life and not just some dead plastic. Come on, may be your characters are not but your audience certainly have grown up now.