Nov 01, 2007 04:54 PM
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I realize the title to my review is too much of an early prediction since "JAB WE MET", no matter how much myself or other members of the audience appreciate it, just came out last Friday and has a long way to go before being declared a Box Office Hit. Now, as my readers might have already realized, JAB WE MET is a movie I personally liked, and keeping in mind the word of mouth, great reviews, great opening, and also great ratings at MS, I feel the majority of its target audience - the families and the youth - have appreciated the movie despite a genre that has been beaten to death.
Director Imtiaz Ali takes the audience and the critics right back to the basics of film-making, where you can actually take a totally expired genre and bring it back to age with the use of clever technique and direction. In recent times, Bollywood film-makers have gone the extreme ways to deal with the shortage of new plots. In fact, if you take the example of Ram Gopal Verma, you don't need two film-makers as an example of this either. RGV alone justifies this statement: one Friday he turned to remaking the classic SHOLAY and the very next Friday he tried something totally new and alien to Bollywood by introducing the idea of a commercial, comedic Horror movie DARLING. Unfortunately, both films failed at the Box Office and while RGV has way too much experience to be compared with Imtiaz Ali, that's exactly why Imtiaz deserves great credit - for showing the more experienced film-makers that they do not need to go to extreme levels to deal with the shortage of ideas. JAB WE MET is a case of an expired boy-meets-girl plot turned into a contemporary entertainer a majority of the audience can easily enjoy.
The story must have been discussed a million times already but to sum it up, it's a PYAAR TO HONA HI THA type scenario where Aditya(Shahid) gets a new, happier life after meeting Geet(Kareena), who is full of life, optimism, and energy. However, over-confidence in her love Anshuman (Tarun Arora) costs Geet dearly as she had eloped from her house to marry him. When Aditya and Geet next meet, he has turned into an energetic and successful industrialist while she has gone from the most bubbly girl in town to being a depressed, lonely woman. At this point, Aditya decides to pay Geet back for bringing his life together as he tries to bring her life together. In the process, he reunites her with Anshuman, and brings her back to her home. Has Aditya made the love story of Geet and Anshuman reach the perfect ending. Or is there a twist in the plot?
Obviously, this sounds way too much like PYAAR TO HONA HI THA and on paper JAB WE MET sounds like a product that would have quite a challenge to reach out to the audiences. But Imtiaz Ali's confidence deserves credit as he chose the risky path and walked on it. What is different from PYAAR TO HONA HI THA is that in that movie, the characters were matured people going through the troubles of life since the very beginning. In the case of JAB WE MET, the characters start very young and truly come of age while dealing with the problems with their lives. In a fresh, entertaining way, Imtiaz delivers the message that one should always fight with life to keep oneself happy. Great message delivered without making it sound like a lecture. Also, in case of JAB WE MET, both the principle characters get to experience each other's pain by going through similar scenarios. In PYAAR TO HONA HI THA, it is Ajay who throughout helps Kajol get over the depression of losing her love, not vice versa. However, the ending is one area where JAB WE MET is really filmi, but it is one of those situations where the viewer really cannot complain since that is the only justified ending.
Technically, in addition to Imtiaz Ali's sound direction, others on the crew also manage to do a great job. Pritam is in form after a long long time. The album is a good mixture of foot-tapping dance numbers as well as extremely meaningful and melodious soft numbers. Camerawork and cinematography are appropriate while the songs are picturised wonderfully. Editing could have been tighter as the inevitable ending is stretched beyond limits. Performances are of a very high quality in general.
Shahid Kapoor steals the show with what happens to be the best performance of his career. As Aditya, he brings to life a character that has various shades, from being a depressed and troubled industrialist to being a cheerful young problem solver. Regardless of which shade he is playing, Shahid aces each examination put before him as an actor and delivers a knock-out performance that acts as a great follow-up to Vivaah. Well done Shahid!
Kareena Kapoor is great in parts but overacts in the initial reels. That, however, is one thing you can blame Imtiaz Ali for. He could have gotten something better out of Kareena because she acted overly cheerful in the initial reels while just needing to sound cheerful and full of life. Anyways, her character is such in the first half that the overacting doesn't cause much harm and when Kareena does get a chance to create histrionics in the second half, she does exactly that. Watch out for the scene where she breaks down into tears after admitting to Shahid's character that her immaturity had caused her life to take a horrible turn. Tarun Arora needs a lot of improvement in his dialogue delivery but manages to perform alright with his expressions. To his credit, he does manage to bring down the house in the final reels of the show with his great situational comedy. The supporting cast does a very fine job and makes it look like a team effort.
Overall, JAB WE MET is a fresh product coming out of a really unfresh plot. You have to see it to believe how Imtiaz Ali has succeeded to entertain the audiences with a plot that sounds totally beaten to death on paper. With NO SMOKING offering zero competition thanks to its poor word of mouth, JAB WE MET is clearly expected to emerge a winner on the Box Office in the coming days. But then again, that's only the expected.and not everything goes as expected.
