Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani - Glossy, flat and not much Indian


One more KJO production, one more flat, predictable story line. All gloss, some frills and barely any depth. Bunny - hero - is selfish to the core, for the most part anway, but other than that, typically filmy super-smart. Drinks, dances, brawls galore -and ain wakt mein -  obtains a NorthWestern Univ scholarship with - nary a hint to nor a thought about - his 2 friends who he ostensibly spends all his time with.
8 years later, one of the friends decides to marry (arranged!, hallelujah) - after more drinks/dances/poorly-explained-bruised-friendship-set-right and general herogiri - Bunny domesticates and gets hitched, conveniently. A flat story with a suitably flat New Year scene ending.
Naina - apparently, the heroine - is an add-on, literally to the 3-friend-some and to the script. Where the script fails, the acting holds. Farooque Shaikh's well-enacted character gets a raw deal in the script in a one-sided relationship with his son. One more changing pattern from the typical Indian hero:hero-parent relationship of the past. But, then come to think of it - there wasn't much 'Indian' about the entire narrative. The characters could have belonged  to any upwardly mobile set of families from almost anywhere set in similar locales - and the script would have worked just as well (or badly).
Maybe, this is because - and a case - of art reflecting the society it is set in and what that society wants to see itself as. Probably, which is why it's raking it in, in the BO.