Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
Source: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KZivoxUVY8I/maxresdefault.jpg
Directed by Karan Johar and starring Aishwarya Rai, Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor in lead roles, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (ADHM) released this weekend after all the controversy it generated in the last few months. Does it work? Let’s check it out.
Ayan (Ranbir) is a rich dude who ‘seems’ to be pursuing MBA (or Mere Baap ki Arzoo as he says) and has so much money that he travels on his personal jet. Alizeh (Anushka) is a young woman who is sorted and knows what she wants in love and friendship.
Saba (Aishwarya) is a poetess who is divorced and ends up falling for Ayan. Are Ayan and Alizeh just friends or more? Will Saba get the happiness she wants? Will love triumph over friendship? The rest of the movie talks about all this and more.
Karan had the best actors in the business to do the job. But his screenplay falters right from the start. The relationships in the movie seem really superficial and it feels as though the depth in these relationships is never established for the viewer to feel for the characters.
While the sequences of friendship between Ayan and Alizeh has it’s moments in the 1980s Bollywoodish style draamebazi, things get repetitive after a point. It sadly just becomes a mish-mash of pub hopping, lustful relationships and random emotional sequences thrown here and there.
While dialogues like “Pyaar mein junoon hai par dosti mein sukoon hai” sound catchy, Alizeh and Ayan’s relationship seemed more like friends with benefits than anything else.
The cinematography with the beautiful locations of Paris, Austria, London and more is striking as always. Some of the songs like ‘Bulleya‘ and ‘Channa Mereya‘ do stand out. But unfortunately these songs only seem as though they are papering over the cracks of the wafer thin plot. They act more as obstacles in the narrative.
Anushka and Ranbir have a pretty good chemistry going and are efficient in their portrayal of their respective characters despite losing their way in the shoddy script. But it’s time that Ranbir stops accepting similar “rich confused dude” kind of characters. He’s surely much better than that.
Aishwarya, Fawad Khan and Imran Abbas are wasted in their respective roles as they honestly don’t have much to do. I honestly feel that few scenes of the latter two were chopped off after all the controversy. Lisa Haydon is quite irritating in her avatar. Alia Bhatt and Shahrukh Khan add nothing more than star appeal in their blink-and-you-miss appearances.
All in all, this seems a mishmash of Rockstar, Jab We Met and Kal Ho Na Ho. Poor effort.
Rating – 1/5
Parul Thakur
Thank god I read your review. One I’m not a Hindi movies’ fan and two this is the review I will take seriously. 🙂
aseemrastogi2
Haha Parul! You know actually there have been a lot of mixed reviews about the movie. But personally for me while I do like love stories or melodrama stories as well on and off, this one put me off since even the romance / friendship lacked depth. I mean if I can’t feel for the characters, what’s the point :(. Same like a story or a book. The writer needs to ensure that you feel for the characters and immerse yourself. If you aren’t able to feel for them, the book turns you off :).
Durga Prasad Dash
I did not find the movie as bad as you have depicted. It was especially refreshing to see Aishwarya in a charming role after so many years. And the lead actors have performed well. Of course I have written a ‘Quick Review’ on my blog.
aseemrastogi2
Yeah actually a lot of people have liked the movie. I personally felt there could have been a lot more depth in the movie since I felt things going on superficially. While I am ok with tearjerkers and the likes, in this one I sadly couldn’t even feel for the romance / friendship between Anushka and Ranbir. Welcome to my blog :).