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Friday, April 26, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD ANJAANA ANJAANI
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: ***
Romantic comedy "Anjaana Anjaani" goes in to so many directions, you
wonder what happened to those good old films where Boy Met Girl… and they
lived happily ever laughter.
Laughter, there`s plenty of it in "Anjaana Anjaani". Raucous laughter,
bitter laughter, silly laughter, goofy laughter… The couple Akash and Kiara
are portrayed more like two beer-swigging buddies on a road trip through the USA
(shot with shimmering restlessness by Ravi Chandran) than lovers staring at the
moon and dreaming of the ever-after.
This is that 1940s` Bette Davis-Clark Gable county where love emerges from the
verbal skirmish between two people thrown together by fate. There isn`t much
plot on display here. Once we know that the two suicidal protagonists are
together for the rest of the movie the only mystery that remains is why such
vibrant lives would want out.
The drama of death as defined by the rituals of daily living are rather
elaborately, sometimes engagingly other times tediously, mapped in the plotline
which is slimmer than Priyanka Chopra`s waistline. Regrettably for an
interactive rom-com the dialogues are not always as savvy, sassy and seductive
as they ought to be.
Many times you feel the dialogues are translated from the English rather than
conceived in the spoken language. Then there are the songs. Sigh. Tediously
carpeting the soundtrack of the second more-pointless half, Vishal-Shekhar`s
music just seems to be creating a dimension to divert our attention from the two
belligerent characters played by two very engaging actors who quite often seem
to be inventing pretexts for their characters beyond those provided by the plot,
character and the lines they mouth.
Priyanka Chopra, incontestably the most complete and watchable actress of her
generation, makes you forget the film`s obvious blemishes, mainly lengthy
self-indulgent passages of pedestrian passion-play written in a tone that
attempts to be flip but fails to grip. With every film Priyanka grows in stature
as an actor even when the space offered is meager as in "Kaminey".
Given a wall-to-wall character to perform in this film she has so much fun
digging into the crevices of the person she is required to create, you end up
watching only the character and the actress, in that order.
Perfect timing in the comic scenes, skilfully and subtly seductive in the
bedroomy interludes and boisterous when in a drunken rage, Priyanka takes over
the show from her first inebriated appearance on a bridge where she spots our
hero while trying to jump to her death.
Ranbir Kapoor in comparison is surprisingly subdued. It`s partly to do with the
nature of his character (an arrogant misguided soul with little control over his
ego). But you suspect Ranbir just decided to sportingly play the backseat boy
this time because on Priyanka he had finally met his match on screen.
Zayed Khan as Priyanka`s heart breaker gets little space. But he makes sensitive
use of the meager playing-time.
With more support from the dialogues and an elaborate supporting cast (the
people who get a voice are largely stereotypes, the preachy lady doctor, the
hero`s supportive friend and his chirpy wife, etc), the very fine lead pair
would have been better able to express their exceptional skills as actors.
"Anjaana Anjaani" is a film that sets off a tender saucy engaging
trip. It somewhere loses its way. But still gets to its targeted destination
because of the lead players who appear to know all the signposts and U-turns. By
heart.
Hrithik Roshan would have been "great" to play the title role in the Indian remake of Hollywood film "Rambo" but the actor was not keen to do another remake after "Bang Bang!", the official adaptation of "Knight and Day", says director Siddharth Anand.Read More
No change in 'Anjaana Anjaani' release date again: ProducerProducer Sajid Nadiadwala confirms that he won’t go for any further change in the release date of Priyanka-Ranbir starrer "Anjaana Anjaani" from Oct 1. Read More
Two people can meet ANYWHERE. In a cab on a rainy New York afternoon, at the neighbourhood bar, in a queue waiting to use the ATM Machine, On a plane, deep sea diving, in the middle of an earth quake, sitting on that famous bench at the Taj Mahal or standing under the Pyramids in Egypt. You can meet someone in the most mundane of circumstances or in the most exotic ones. Akash and kiara meet. But they meet in a situation as unusual as no other.
But what if the two people who meet as strangers want to stay that way? They want to end right where they started- as strangers.
This is the story of two strangers on an odyssey of discovery - down a path that is ridden with the exquisite pain and joy of falling in love, only they don`t realize it
A series of hilarious misadventures trace their bi coastal road journey as they go about fulfilling their last wishes. But then life interrupts, as is its habit; and painful choices must be made. The duo part with the understanding that their days together were a brief interlude of insanity that had to succumb to real life.
They part as they met-as strangers. But can a cloaked love so strange between two strangers conquer the idiom of normalcy we all believe in. Is it worth leaving behind all that is familiar? Is it a love in time, is it truly the beginning they never expected? Follow Akash and Kiara, along this hilarious, contemporary yet poignant journey of stumbling into all that
