KABHI ALVIDHA JAROOR KAHNA. Review on Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna-is what director Karan Johar

requesting to his loyal audience. They certainly

don’t and will come back to you again, Karan provided

you give them some concrete, digestible, humane tales

rather than far-fetched, half baked, amateurish

glimpses of adultery in relationships. Before I am

being accused of another one from Karan bashing

brigade, I like to clarify that I admire him for

nurturing a certain brand of mushy goody-goody cinema,

through his-KKHH/ K3G/KHNH, now popularized as Karan

Johar Brand of cinema. It is a breakthrough in this

increasingly commercialized world of global cinema,

where more than film-making craft it is the smart

marketing that sells. It certainly has an audience

and a sizeable portion of its hugh revenues comes from

our nostalgic NRI Audience. Therefore, the problem

basically lies in this very fact, as whatever he

attempts to do even “different” also has to be within

the constraints of his brand of cinema, and this film

becomes a victim here, and so is his characters.

The story that fluctuates between two unhappy couples

viz. Dev-Ria and Rishi-Maya, where infidelity and

adultery in marriages is being dealt, can therefore

come across more as a superficial, frivolous and quite

forced. The basic plot lacks that motivational factor

among married ones which compels them to stray. Worst

is all of them realize that their marriage had

problems and they need to work on them, then I wonder

what stopped them from going to a marriage counselor.

Later, these characters were made to look angels by

making them confess about their relationship to their

respective spouses, bear the brunt of their “sin”, the

whole exercise appears as if the characters never

grown up from those counterparts of KKHH/K3G, and is

much heightened by the same type of dialogues that

they speak in film. The situation towards climax too

are built around such that the lovers should be united

only if others permit and thus makes those two not

just weak but also irresponsible ones, though all this

is done to gain sympathy for them. You could say that

film will start looking for some easy quick-fix

balanced solutions towards end. And here goes the

circumstances that looked forced and calculated,

rather mechanical.

Whole film is shot in New York, at a lavish scale and

cinematographer Anil Mehta shot it quite well. The

Songs though are not just a weak factor but come

across as surprise items each after every half an

hour, whether required or not. All performances

though are neat. Your audience will stay back Karan,

if next time you give them some flesh and blood, some

life and not just some dead plastic. Come on, may be

your characters are not but your audience certainly

have grown up now.

Ram Gopal Varma said that I accepted I failed to make

proper horror films but yes, Karan Johar do make

horror films. With due apologies I have to say that,

to make horror films require a certain amount of

talent therefore, the films that Karan is making

cannot be termed as horrors but yes, definitely

horrible, if one has to put a genre.