Thumbs up to KANK and Karan. Review on Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

The film begins on a lighter note, with the cheeky Samarjit Singh aka Sam’s sexy shenanigans, a widower living it up in New York with hot American babes as amusement! Mr Bachchan as Sam is great fun, with son Rishi addressing him as ‘Dude’, adding colour to the proceedings in true Karan Johar style. From jokes that range from a “call girl calling him” to the “Chandigarh Ass” to many more that will appear lackluster on paper in this review but shines in the film with a mischievous gleam that unfailingly makes you laugh or at times at least smile, the situational humor is well captured by the director and perfectly enacted by the lead thespians. When real life father-son act as reel-life father-son with zest and humor, the screen comes alive. This then metamorphoses into dramatic content when father Samarjit discovers his daughter-in-law’s infidelity. The wise family head dons a different hat from the ‘Rock N Roll Soniye’ one and advises her onto the right path, lying on deathbed after his third heart attack, remarkably declaring “Death and love, dono bin bulaaye mehmaan hote hain”. This is indeed a bold stand for Indian cinema of this kind, which to-date has been immersed in tradition and Indian morals have been heeded and paid respect to at every juncture of screenwriting and filmmaking.

From the fun-n-games to the serious dramatic portions, the film has a couple of clichéd but extremely well-executed sequences, like when Dev, already seeing Maya on the sly, comes face-to-face with Rhea while on a clandestine date with Maya. These are scenes that work because of the stars and the direction, not the writing. While the lines are unremarkable, the expressions of the veteran actors and the camera capturing the finer nuances of such a difficult moment make the film an involving fare. If only the writing was as sharp….

The only place where the writing is noteworthy is in the humor of Sam, and also in the scene where SRK’s Dev admits to his affair at a family dinner as a joke, a scene which brings to fore SRK’s immense dramatic strength. Also, in the scene where Abhishek’s Rishi finally explodes and questions Rani’s Maya about her physical infidelity, one really feels for Rishi (one of Abhishek’s finest performances to date), though the Closer scene with Clive Owen immediately came to mind while viewing this.