I can't get enough of great Bollywood love stories. Like, literally. They don't make enough of those.
Straight-up romances have never been the staple genre in mainstream Hindi films. The love stuff has traditionally been one of the many spices in the masala blend. In recent years, there's been an even greater move away from romances. Action-comedies have been the big earners, and the love story at the heart of these films have generally been between the forty-something male superstar and his adoring audience. Karan Johar, that famed filmi miner of the heart, has lamented that there hasn't been an iconic Bollywood love story for this young century.
It hasn't been a completely dry spell, of course. Millennial audiences have annually gotten a successful, memorable romance-centric movie or two. Kareena Kapoor is probably super thankful that Jab We Met turned her career around in 2007, but the rest of us are pretty glad it exists too. Jodhaa Akbar (2008) is still spawning sepia-ed gifs of Ash and Hrithik doing some coy Mughal-flavored flirting on Tumblr. 2010's Band Baaja Baaraat gave us Ranveer Singh (for whom I thank the universe everyday) and one of the best onscreen kisses in Hindi film history.The divisive Rockstar (2011), but for Nargis Fakhri's woeful performance, was an excellent entry into the canon of Bollywood romances.
In 2013, however, we don't just have one potential breakout in the pretty-young-famous-people-falling-in-love-onscreen genre. We have several. Something happened in the past couple years that prompted a bunch of talented young filmmakers to decide that 2013 was going to be Bollywood's annus pyarabilis. (I wish I were more sorry for that phrase than I am.) Audiences have already lapped up the soggy, weakly reviewed, song-heavy Aashiqui 2, the year's biggest runaway success so far. But things are only getting bigger and better in the coming months for love-lovers, and I'm excited? Is everybody else excited? Good. Now let's play this fun game where I speculate, purely based on their trailers and promos, on the quality of these films. First out of the gate is Dharma's Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone.
If you were a desi kid back in the early 2000s, you might remember how exciting those big films, with the sangeet song and the party song and the gorgeous costumes and the huge stars (usually SRK), were. They used to come out during Eid or Christmas, and they were Bollywood's version of a tentpole. That sort of film has gone out of style over the years, and going by the first trailer of YJHD, I thought this film was updating that frothy, glamorously feel-good aesthetic, adding to it some youthfulness and self-awareness and subtracting some seriously iffy leading-man costume choices. The visuals looked crisp and glossy, the snatches of the soundtrack used in the trailer sounded awesome, and the cast looked like it was having a grand old time.
But with each subsequent promo has somewhat deflated my excitement for the film. YJHD is directed by Ayaan Mukerji, who made the winsome Wake Up Sid! with Ranbir in 2008. His debut feature managed to be that rare straight-rich-guy-finding-himself narrative that managed the feat of not annoying the crap out of me. The film was helped by a light, everyday-ish touch and Konkona Sen Sharma who, by virtue of being one of India's greatest living actresses instead of a standard-issue starlet, elevated Mukerji's slight narrative and generated some lovely chemistry with Ranbir.
YJHD of course has the far more conventional pair of Deepika and Ranbir. Ranbir seems to be playing straight-rich-dude-finding-himself again, except this time he's surer of what he wants to do. Based on the song promo for "Kabira" (a really, really good number), what he wants to do involves filming stuff* on moving vehicles in foreign countries while going from fulfilled to pensive. Am I the only one reminded of Saif in Love Aaj Kal's "Main Kya Hoon?" where he's all bright and Dharma-y in the beginning but goes all dark and Adajania-y by the end? A lot about this film reminds me of that relatively underrated Imtiaz Ali film, actually, but I digress.
The promos are Ranbir-heavy, and he's clearly bringing all his goofy charm. But I'm not sure how much I like prettified Ranbir anymore.** He's much more interesting to watch, and certainly much more attractive, when he's a little rough around the edges. By now, I'm pretty certain that Ranbir is a top-notch actor, versatile, witty, and thoughtful, and I will watch him in anything. But this bit, where he tells Deepika's character how cool she is, while she stares at him, all lovelorn? It's clearly supposed to be incredibly romantic, but it doesn't work for me. It might even read a little condescending. Just to be clear, I think Ranbir's going to be great in this, I just wonder if this sort of role is now a bit too easy for him.
The trailer itself made me nervous about Deepika's character, "chashmish-Naina," who takes off her glasses and finds volumizing conditioner at some point in the movie, and becomes "Deepika-Naina" - as in, a super-hot Amazon with legs for miles. All the promos since then have highlighted Ranbir, to the point that, in the "Dilliwaali Girlfriend" number, Deepika's choreography is not much more than stalking around with her hands on her hips and wiggling her chest from time to time, while Ranbir does his charismatic, livewire thing around her. Cocktail proved to me that Deepika's acting could be as compelling as her movie-goddess looks, but I've also realized that she is painfully limp whenever she is cast as the ordinary girl-next-door foil to her leading men. Deepika is best when she is allowed to play magnetic, slightly wicked women who are hyper-aware of their charms and not afraid to exercise them. She's not a particularly rangy actress, but she's got star quality, and she shines when outfitted with the kind of role that lets her work her supermodel looks and preternatural poise. In fact, her best moments in the YJHD footage so far has been in those brief scenelets when she dances up on Kalki in "Balam Pichkari" and "Dilliwaali Girlfriend." The look she gives Our Lady of Kashyap in the latter is pure sex.***
At any rate, her role in YJHD seems to basically involve waiting around while Ranbir finds himself (I promise this is the last time I use this phrase), realizes that travelling around filming stuff on moving vehicles is no good when you don't have true love in your life, and comes back to her. Maybe she gets to marry Rahul Khanna for a bit while she waits. What I'm saying, in this tediously roundabout manner, is that a boring heroine doesn't make for a compelling romance.
You know what else doesn't make for a compelling romance, at least the Bollywood kind? Meh music. YJHD's music is far from meh, but it's got that overproduced Pritam vibe that makes it work very well in a trailer and less so when each song is heard in its entirety. (The aforementioned "Kabira" is kind of an exception.) To wit, "Balam Pichkari" sounds like the perfect song of summer - fizzy and irrepressibly catchy - when you listen to the bit in the promo, but the digitized, cleaned-up vocals get boring after a while if you listen to the whole song. There's almost invariably too much going on in Pritam's music; he can craft an crazy earwormy, dance-ready tune, but his penchant for those generic EDM production values keep at bay a certain sweetness and earnestness that you need for the soundtrack in a film like this.
Even the way these songs have been filmed lacks a certain vim, a certain imagination, a certain "bigness." KJo gets a lot of flak for a lot of things, but people don't realize how boss he is at doing things not a lot of other filmmakers can't do, like filming the shit out of a song-and-dance number. His films pop on screen like few big-budget Bollywood productions. Even the choreography here is a little . . . lacking (except for one notable exception, which I'll get to in a bit.) Ranbir is a great dancer, and I get that the film is about him, and that Ayaan and he are best friends, but if you've cast Deepika Padukone in your film, let her dance, for Helen's sake. Let her dance!
What I feel about the songs is basically what I feel about this film in general. I like how it looks, but I feel like it could have been so much more. I want to watch it, but I know I could be much more excited. I wish it did more with its superficial trappings (Manish Mallhotra, how dare you give Deepika the low-rent version of Bebo's K3G sharara? I mean, she looks amazing, but still. Be less lazy, Manish Malhotra. Oh, and tell your nephew not to eff up Bebo's new movie.) I wish the narrative seemed a little a little bit less familiar, or at least treated in a less familiar, more heartfelt manner.
Wow. I've gone pretty hard on this film without even having watched it. But I'll happily eat crow if it proves me wrong, and subverts the slight genericness of its promos into something clever and moving and original. I want it to succeed! I want it to be good! I really do!
Anyway, YJHD has one feature that is worth the price of a ticket, several times over. Behold.
Seriously, I will watch a film with Mimoh and Ameesha Patel in the lead if it means I get to see Madhuri Dixit in all her queenly glory.
Next up: I get all judgy about Raanjhanaa. Everybody hates Sonam Kapoor. Do I hate Sonam Kapoor? We'll find out.
*What's with Ayaan's protagonists and cameras? Let's have a hero find himself in accounting or plastic surgery next time, 'kay?
**His eyebrows and hairline have been manicured and, er, refreshed a little too aggressively. Not the best look for him.
***So Deepika totally has better chemistry with her female co-stars than her leading men, right? If Cocktail were all DPad and Diana, I'd have liked that film SO much better. Also, the Koffee With Karan interview with Sonam was crackling. Like, they were finishing each other's sentences. I will always mourn the premature demise of that promising frenemyship.
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