Kareena's performance makes this one a must-watch. Review on Jab We Met

Forget movies like "Fida"(which bombed at the box-office, despite having a number of good twists and turns), "36 China town"(which was funny but not thrilling) and "Chup chup ke"(which was dumb and definitely not funny). Shahid and Kareena were not at all one of the favourite onscreen couples(of both critics and public) in the hindi film industry. They had been criticized for not looking good together and it had also been mentioned that they don't share a good onscreen chemistry. "Jab we met"(JWM) is their first romantic movie together. After watching JWM, you get the feeling that they worked on this movie with vengeance on their minds and they have successfully done so. Not only do they prove their critics wrong but they also deliver their best performances so far. I won't give the entire credit to them. The director, Imtiaz Ali(whose directorial debut - the Abhay Deol-Ayesha Takia starrer "Sochaa naa tha" was critically acclaimed) does a fabulous job in his second movie too.

The plot is nothing new(you get reminded of movies like "A walk in the clouds", which in turn was the inspiration of disasters like "Dhaai akshar prem ke" and "Kunwara", "DDLJ" and "Hum tum") but one doesn't expect a romantic comedy to have an exceptional story. I'd like to quote the king of the hindi film industry, SRK - "The best story is that of a man and a woman"(he said so while promoting "Chalte chalte"). Aditya Kashyap(Shahid Kapoor) is the son of a big industrialist. He is a shy and depressed person. depressed because the girl he loved is getting married to someone else. His mother has run away with her lover. He is not doing well professionally too. The company he inherited from his father is going through losses. During such a time, he leaves everything and boards a train. He doesn't even know where he wants to go and what he wants to do. He meets Geet(the very lovely Kareena Kapoor) in the train. Geet is completely opposite to Aditya. She is annoyingly talkative and irritates Aditya so much that he leaves the train. As Geet tries to get him back into the train, she ends up missing the train and the two of them are left stranded in a desolate station with no luggage. Geet asks Aditya to take her to Bhatinda, where she lives. When they reach the place, Geet's family mistakes the two for lovers. They spend some time there, after which Geet escapes to her boyfriend in Manali(with Aditya's help again). She tells him that she will go back to her place as soon as she gets married to her boy-friend. After this, Aditya returns to Mumbai and he is a completely changed person now. He is much more relaxed and cool. He looks at the brighter side of life and this optimistic approach makes him successful in whatever he does. One day Geet's family sees him on tv. They go to his place and ask him about Geet. They inform him that Geet hasn't returned home in nine months. What happens next is for you to watch.

The movie belongs to three people - Kareena, Shahid and the director, Imtiaz. Kareena is mesmerizing. She looks so real and so beautiful even without any make-up. Her performance is equally competent. She is lovely as the chatter-box in the first-half and does very well in the emotional scenes in the second half too. It can rightly be said that she deserves an award for her performance in JWM and I don't see much competition for her this year(except for Rani's performance in "Tara rum pum"). Shahid delivers his best performance so far. He still has a SRK-hangover but he is good. Tarun Arora is awkward but he suits the character. The supporting cast is fine. Direction by Imtiaz Ali reminds you of his first movie - "Sochaa naa tha" and takes the movie to a different level even if it has an okay plot. JWM is not a high-budget movie but the director makes it look stylish (Talking about low-budget flicks, I watched the Pooja Bhatt-directed "Dhokha" recently on tv. I was quite impressed and will recommend it to you). Music by Pritam is an asset. All the songs are good. "Mauja mauja" is a foot-tapping number. My pick of the lot is the song picturised on Kareena while she is on her way to Manali. The song is very sweet and what makes it better is Kareena's presence.

At the box-office, it has got an excellent opening. There is also the added hype because the lead actors are no more an offscreen couple(Saif and Kareena look good together. Here's wishing them all the best!). The other releases of the week("No smoking" and "Mumbai salsa") are getting terrible reviews and also haven't managed to get good collections so far. I watched "No smoking" and I don't think I will be able to write a review on it because I didn't really understand the plot. I was surprised because the director(Anurag Kashyap) had earlier given us a movie like "Black friday", which was as good as the Rahul Dholakia-directed national award-winning "Parzania", Mira Nair's "The namesake" and Deepa Mehta's oscar-winning "Water". I actually found a dumb movie like Vikram Bhatt's "Speed"  better than "No smoking". Its a pity that Shahid and Kareena's best movie together(also their first hit together) has come after their split.

MY RATING - 3.5 out of 5.