Movies are quite often classified by the general audience based on the genre they belong to - action, romance, drama or comedy. The critics tend to segregate them into mainstream cinema or art. I’ve always believed that there are only two kinds of movies - the good ones and the bad ones. No prizes then for guessing which category KAL HO NA HO (KHNH) falls under! After such a seemingly irrelevant and rambling (sorry) preamble, let me get down to the actual dissection.
The story: as Karan Johar would have us believe :-)
The setting is New York. Life has been very rough for Naina Catherine Kapoor(Preity). Her world is dull, gloomy and depressing, thanks to quirky fate and her feuding family. Naina’s Catholic mother Jennifer(Jaya Bachchan) and her Punjabi grandma Lajjo(Sushma Seth) are always at loggerheads over her dead father, sweet cherubic adopted sister and handicapped brother. Added to this are her family’s financial problems thanks to a hopeless restaurant venture partnered by a friend and neighbour. Naina’s only solace in all this chaos is her friend Rohit(Saif Ali Khan). Rohit is the 21st century’s answer to Don Juan de Marco, forever chasing skirts in a fruitless effort to find true love.
Enter Aman(Shah Rukh Khan), an inveterate do-gooder from India who is hell bent on solving everyone’s problems and more particularly bringing happiness back in Naina’s life. He turns around the restaurant’s fortunes, ingratiates himself into her family and brings back the smiles in the household. Naina rediscovers life and falls for him like a tonne of bricks. Aman however, cannot reciprocate her feelings but realizing that Rohit is in love with Naina resolves to bring them together. What happens thereafter is told in true heart-wrenching manner with a few guffaws, some smiles and a lot of tears thrown in for good measure.
So here are a few questions that kept preying on my mind before I went into the hall and their answers after I was thru with the epic 3:20 hr love saga.
How different is KHNH from K3G and KKHH considering it comes from
a stable that churns out movies replete with superfluous emotions and candy floss romances?
The name Karan Johar(KJ) literally gives me the shudders and when combined with Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) it just multiplies manifold. The fact that KHNH was directed by Nikhil Advani (NA) didn’t cut much ice with me since I was still wary of KJ’s influence as the story and scriptwriter. But KHNH put to rest all my consternation and I have to admit that the movie is much better fare than their earlier two ventures. KHNH unabashedly manipulates our sentiments, takes us to the brink but then safely brings us back to reality. KHNH makes us laugh and also cry, but for plausible reasons and under conceivable circumstances.
Is the story any different or is it the usual love triangle?
The story has nothing to offer in terms of novelty but its the treatment that contributes to the appeal. Now isn’t that a pathetically cliched statement? Of course yes but u’ll have to see it to understand it.
What works for the movie ?
Its no big secret that KJ loves working with SRK and if ever there’s been a role tailor-made for the King Khan, then this is it. Every facet of the character of Aman has been written keeping him in mind. SRK, as a result, does not need to get into the skin of the character - he simply has to play himself which he manages to do with elan. He is simply brilliant in the first half in all the funny scenes and leaves his indelible stamp on the breezy romantic moments. Its in the emotional scenes - when Preity comes to profess her love for him, when he reveals Jaya’s dark secret, when he confronts Preity in the climax - that he falters taking refuge behind the unbearable hamming and convoluted facial expressions.
Saif Ali Khan is a whiff of fresh air and stands tall in a role that has him playing loser and under-dog throughout.(well almost) He manages to hold his own and even outdo SRK in some of the lighter moments post interval. DCH and now KHNH will only go on to remind Hindi movie makers what they have missed out on all these years.
Preity Zinta is simply eye-cathing both in her cheerless, monocled avatar and the ’’happy again but lost between both loves’’ avatar. She comes up trumps in all the emotional sequences and proves yet again that she is more than just another pretty face. (Make it very pretty face) And do check out her post-interval wardrobe: Way to go Manish Malhotra !
Jaya Bachchan is truly peerless - she delivers yet another flawless performance and surprisingly shares tremendous chemistry (can I call it that?) with SRK. Sushma Seth is passable as are Dara Singh, Satish Shah and Lilette Dubey. Sonali Bendre and Rajpal Yadav are excellent in eeny-tweeny roles but the other cameos are irksome distractions.
Technically, KHNH is on very solid ground. Anil Mehta’s camera is enchanting and almost every frame is picturesque to say the least. He captures and conveys effortlessly the ’’magic of New York’’ - the rising milieu of Manhattan, Hudson bridge. Just check out the title track.
The music of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is simple yet endearing and the background score, esp. the repetitive but haunting instrumental of the title track, is simply mesmerizing.
Dialogues by Niranjan Iyengar are engaging.
Karan Johar is maturing as a writer and its there for all to see in this movie. He manages to churn out the perfect proportion of ingredients that serve to make a commercial pot boiler. His commercial acumen is also clearly visible in his astute targeting of the Gujrati and Punjabi NRI communities by centering the story around them.
Finally, the star of the show is clearly the director Nikhil Advani - Though he clearly belongs to the same school of film making as his mentor KJ, he never seems overawed by the occasion or the expectations and displays admirable control over the proceedings. Like a master conductor, he wields the baton extracting superlative performances from the ensemble star cast.
Scenes to watch out for:
* The family prayer scene and SRK seeing the Kapoors for the first time
* The first ’’blind date’’ evening
* The first time Saif gets ready to propose to Preity at the Riverside
* Saif’s feeble attempts at being hep and romantic
* The railway station scene where SRK reads Saif’s diary notes to Preity
* Sonali’s scenes with SRK
However KHNH does have its have its share of hitches and glitches
The fringe characters are aplenty and some of the supporting cast is simply intolerable - esp. the neighborhood sisters who just cant seem to leave men alone and Lajjoji’s two musical sidekicks.
The self-deprecating jokes, the few and far between double entendres, the hard-to-miss gay references including the Kantaben track grate beyond a certain point.
The choreography is a let down esp. ’’ITS THE TIME TO DISCO’’ (it had the potential to be another KOI KAHE) and PRETTY WOMAN.
The climax is truly filmi and also ’’inspired’’ - And surely the movie could be trimmed by 2 reels.
Summing up, KHNH is a must for all those people who have ever been in love and experienced pain and loss. (My friend disagrees and thinks my reco is to long.. so here I go again) KHNH is a must-see for all.(My friend is happy)