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Directed by Abhishek Varman and starring Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in lead roles, 2 States is the movie adaptation of one of Chetan Bhagat’s most successful works (having the same name) till date. The movie has been in the news since the time of its inception. The songs and the trailers are already popular among the audience. Does it work? Let’s check it out.
The story goes like this –
Krish (Arjun Kapoor) & Ananya meet by chance in the mess of IIM Ahmedabad. And almost immediately they strike a chord. She the bubbly and vivacious one and he the quite, subdued and restrained IIT dude. They fall in love and by the time they leave college, the talk shifts on how they will convince their parents. The rest of the movie deals with how the North meets South and live happily ever after.
Though the book wasn’t sensational or a great piece of literature, it was quite decently written and liked by many. The story moves at a feverish pace in the first half with all the love and songs written all over it. During the 2nd half, all the concentration moves on to convince parents, talk with families and the likes. So a bit of melodrama, a bit of emotions sprinkled with romance.
For those who have read the book, the movie is pretty well adapted from the book. Yes, there are many things which were there in the book but missing in the movie. But then, you can’t really expect a word to word adaptation, can you?
There is the melodramatic mom, the drunken dad, the orthodox Tamilian mom all in the mix. There maybe some stereotypes but the cultures of both Tamil Nadu and Punjab are quite well depicted. Whether its beer and tandoori chicken for the Punjabis or food on a banana leaf for Tamilians, things are not so over-the-top as seen in other Bollywood flicks.
Locha-e-Ulfat, Uffo are the pick of the songs by Shankar – Ehsaan – Loy. The cinematography which moves across IIM Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai is quite well done. The dialogues take the flick to another level altogether.
The only downside I could find was that there’s quite a big difference between the first half and the second half. The second half becomes really slow and things are stretched a bit. The flick could have done with better editing as well as not keep the 1st & 2nd halves as different as chalk and cheese.
And now the performances.
Alia Bhatt looks stunning throughout the flick. Whether its the saris, the salwars or even Western, she looks beautiful. Acting wise she does a fairly good job and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that she is one of the pillars carrying the movie on her shoulders. Arjun Kapoor finally moves on to something light after movies like Gunday, Ishaqzaade and Aurangzeb. He is fairly okayish as the subdued and restrained Krish. But he still needs a lot of work on the way to emote in front of the camera.
Amrita Singh & Revathy are powerhouse actors. And it speaks with their performance in this one as well. Ronit Roy deserved a better role. Shiv Kumar is adequate.
All in all, a pretty good flick!
Rating – 3.5/5
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