This two hour forty-five minute movie is light, frothy, andenjoyable, even though the story is unbelievable. The concept behindthe story is a good one. It’s about seeing through superficialappearances to the real person within. It’s about an ordinary mancalled Surinder Singh(Shah Rukh Khan), an introvert, and somewhatrepressed, who falls headlong in love with a pretty young girl. Evenafter marriage he is unable to express his love for her. Not only is hequiet and undemonstrative, his appearance, dress sense and his hesitantdemeanour is uninspiring and one is reminded of Clark Kent in Superman.His new bride, Taani(Anushka Sharma), finds him dull and boring, andis unable to love him. The movie is about their love, about how Surisets about to woo her after their marriage and we wonder whether Taaniwill eventually see through Suri’s boring exterior to the real Suri.
The director, Aditya Chopra, a man who made the stupendously successful Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, tells this story in a fairly theatrical manner, by creating a situationwhere it is possible for Suri to dress up and act like another personand meet his wife in a different situation. No, not as superman, butsimply the young dashing sort, much like the hero Raj of Yash Raj films– flamboyant, cheerful, talkative and an incorrigible flirt.Thankfully, Taani finds this “flirting” offensive. Any girl would, married or not.
The story
The story is fairly predictable and it is a kind of fantasy as well, despite it being devoid of foreign locations. Otherwise why should thestaid and restrained Suri suddenly break into a song? Why is Taaniunable to recognize him in his double role? She doesn’t even say, heyyou look a little like my husband! And why would Taani, a small-townhome-bound girl behave in the remarkably liberal manner that she does?
There is a premise of the story I did not agree with. In one of themost serious scenes in the movie Raj asks Taani what girls want intheir men and she says all that a girl wants is for a man to love herto distraction, and what Taani appreciates in Suri is that he loves hereven though she doesn’t reciprocate one bit. I found this premise asuperficial one. Perhaps this explains why some young men pursue womenrelentlessly even when the women are not interested, in the hope thatone day they will be.
The music
The song Haule Haule is agood one and while the rest of the music is average, the choreographyby Shiamak Davar is good. All the songs are picturised well.
The characters
Once in the skin of Raj, Suri’s character seems to change, much in themanner of Jekyll and Hyde. Shah Rukh’s rather dramatic actingdistinctly sets apart both Raj and Suri. Overall though Shah Rukh doesa good job, playing both roles with his usual flair and intensity.Except for the character of Suri, the others are poorly developed.Raj’s character is a paper cut-out and Vinay Pathak’s character Bobbyis exaggerated, like Raj’s. However Pathak acts well, as usual. Taani’scharacter seems out of sync, on one hand she is a traditional girl wholikes to do her “duty” by her husband, and on the other she is willingto break all societal norms and actually not go through much conflict, not until the very end! At least if the director had shown somedisturbance in her mind it would have been more believable. Sharmaacted quite alright though, considering the basic weaknesses in herscripted character.
Overall this movie is light entertainment and even if it drags inthe middle, it is a must watch for Shah Rukh fans. He does an great jobplaying two characters and there are a lot of funny moments in themovie, and well, it is a romantic comedy. But if you have to compare this movie to other romantic movies, it is not as good as Jab we met and certainly nowhere in the class of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.