Ae Dil Hai Mushkil...to Sit Through the Movie. KJo, Get an Editor?
Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is a drag of a movie. I wonder why Karan Johar never noticed that.
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Like everyone else, I decided to take the plunge and watch Ae Dil Hai Mushkil on Chhoti Diwali day. I was a nay-ing skeptic when I first watched the teasers of the movie; I knew it would be just another ‘he loves her, she loves him, a vamp (Aishwarya) comes along, he slips, she’s momentarily miffed, but all’s well in the end’ kind of tale.
I wouldn’t have felt cheated if I had received this cliché romance on a platter. What I got instead was an all-star cast of rich brats jumping around London and Paris in their private jets, aimlessly blowing up baap ka paisa.
The movie has nine actors who would be considered stars; and some are very big stars indeed. But that’s the movie’s biggest problem: it is overcrowded. I wonder what other movies did for talent when this one was filming?
Not only is it a stuffed mismash of a cast, the script too is a bad cocktail of Kal Ho Naa Ho, Rockstar and ‘mature’ Karan Johar’s old love for rich people in fancy counties. The movie essentially juggles between extremely good-looking actors and scenic locations, scriptlessly.
My biggest problem lies with Ranbir Kapoor’s character Ayan. Ayan is a chauvinist, a stalker, and a sadist. Yet we are made to sympathise with him because a girl, Alizeh played by Anushka, has ‘friend-zoned’ him and does not want to be romantically involved with him. Interestingly, Ayan/Ranbir also says that a boy and a girl cannot be ‘just friends’. Ayan believes he is entitled to Alizeh’s affection, is obsessed with her and curses her for loving Ali, played by Fawad Khan.
Anushka or Alizeh is literally at Ranbir’s behest. She is the mentor, guide, shoulder to cry on, partner in crime, everything but his lover. The only agency that Johar tries to give her is taken away by Ayan – he does not let her be his friend. To the extent that he deserts her, physically and emotionally abuses her and leaves her at a moment when she needed him the most.
The movie follows one simple equation: A loves B, B loves C, C loves D and E loves A, so there is a complexity of characters and emotion, interspersed with one trillion songs and some silent dancing as well. I won't even attempt to describe the plot further.
But there’s one a hiccup here too: usually a formula movie with an ensemble cast has complexity in terms of colour and class. ADHM however, is far from that realism as well. The characters are completely one-dimensional. Apart from their love lives, they seem to have no vocation, no ambition, no career aspirations, apart from Ayan’s Md Rafi fanaticism. They are looking for love or running away from it, eventually carving out a living from their love’s labour lost: Ranbir becomes the tragic-singer, Ash the acclaimed poet and Anushka a nomad.
It is being touted as Johar’s best movie ever; clearly, we have meagre expectations from him. Let’s call a spade a spade and give him an honest review? It is a drag of a film Sir, and it sorely needs an editor.