Yaraana (Directed by David Dhawan) is the first Hindi remake of the Hollywood thriller Sleeping with the Enemy starring Julia Roberts. I was eagerly waiting for its release back in 1995 as it starred Madhuri Dixit and it was only for her that I would sit through any torturous movie which was her in it. Yaraana was soon followed by Agni Sakshi (starring Manisha Koirala) and Daraar (starring Juhi Chawla) the next year. Agni Sakshi turned out to be the best remake of SWTE among these three remakes.
I feel Agni Sakshi had a much more engaging story and terrific performances from the lead actors which contributed to its success at the box office. Apart from Madhuri Dixit’s performance, Yaraana had nothing working for it. The wafer thin plot and the unnecessary comedy scenes add nothing to the film and the two stars, namely Rishi Kapoor and Raj Babbar look too old and out of place in a film like this.
The story revolves around Lalita (played by Madhuri Dixit) who is forced to marry a rich but over-possessive psycho named J.B. (played by Raj Babbar). J.B. makes sure that Lalita stays on his good side by abiding by his rules and there’s only one rule to stay on his good side that is to stay with him forever. One night, Lalita hatches a plan to escape J.B.’s clutches by faking her own death.
After she escapes, Lalita renames herself ’Shikha’ and meets a nice young man named Raj (played by Rishi Kapoor). All Raj wants is his grandfather (Kader Khan) to be happy and the only way to make him happy is to get married. However, Raj is in no hurry to get married and has other plans up his sleeve. He employs ’Shikha’ to ’act’ as a temporary bride in front of his grandfather. However, Raj’s grandfather takes a strong liking to ’Shikha’ and is hell bent on getting Raj and ’Shikha’ married. Raj dislikes ’Shikha’ but not till he falls in love with her after much ’altu-faltu’ comic scenes which reduce the ’thriller’ quotient of this movie to a null.
Raj and ’Shikha’s’ new found love is short-lived as J.B. makes a reentry into Lalita’s life. What happens next is for you guys to find out.
Yaraana had a huge potential to be a good thriller but when you have a director like David Dhawan who totally lacks in the department of thriller, you end up getting a disaster like this movie. It felt like David couldn’t decide how to proceed with the story, whether to direct a thriller or a comedy. The result is always disastrous. It seemed he couldn’t get out of his Raja Babu or Coolie No. 1 mode. Bad casting (i.e. Rishi Kapoor and Raj Babbar) and poor storytelling is what made Yaraana a disaster at the box office.
Though one must appreciate the technical aspects of this movie. Rajan Kinagi’s camera work is praiseworthy and the songs are brilliantly shot. ’Mera Piya Ghar Aaya’ zoomed to the top of the charts much before the film’s release and Madhuri’s dances were awesome as usual. Kavita Krishnamurthy sung most of the songs for this movie and she even won a Filmfare award for ’Mera Piya Ghar Aaya.’
Madhuri Dixit’s performance was the only silver lining of Yaraana and her dance in the climax ’Jaane Woh Kasia Chor Tha’ is terrific. The movie pretty much relied on her star power.