The film veers into melodrama and contrivances in the second half. Yet its director/co-writer Karan Johar is, here and in other films, trying to bring fresh ideas to Hindi commercial cinema with a little less masala and a dash more reality to its fantasy stories.
Johar, Khan and co-star Kajol, who all worked on Johar’s smash hit Kuch Kuch Hota Hai( 1998), reunite on this much more serious project that finds Khan as a man with a disability who nevertheless wins people over through a loving personality that peeks through his emotional shortcomings. For the first half, the film plays a dicey game of skirting sentimentality without ever quite crossing that line into pure hokum.
Khan is Rizvan Khan, who is on the road in a quest to meet the president of the U.S. to deliver this message: My Name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist. In flashbacks beginning with his early life in India, where a doting mother helped nurture and give strength to a child( played well by Tanay Chheda) suffering from a form of autism, the film recounts its hero’s journey up to this point.
A younger brother, who never felt as appreciated since he was a normal boy, emigrated to San Francisco and achieved success. Upon their mother’s death, his older brother joins him but the two never really adjust to one another.
Against all odds - which more or less is the theme of most Bollywood stories - he woos and wins the love of a beautiful single mom( Kajol) . Only one problem: She is Hindu. The brother cuts thim off, but Khan basks in the love of his new bride and her young son.
Then Sept. 11 happens. The film pictures Americans as unable to tell the differences between Muslims and Hindus or Arabs and Indians. Which is not exactly wrong, when it comes to certain redneck elements, but locating these hatreds in left-leaning San Francisco demonstrates a certain lack of comprehension on the filmmakers’ part as well. Perhaps they just liked the idea of cable cars in their movie.