Buy your tickets now... Review on Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

It’s New York, and it’s nice to see a world of Indians free of what passes off as tradition — no Holi, no Diwali, no wedding songs and mercifully no Karva Chauth. Married women don’t wear mangalsutras, choodas or inch-thick sindoor. For that alone, thank you Karan Johar.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, about two unhappy married couples, is also refreshingly free of high-pitched melodrama (well, almost — there is some crockery flung around).

For a Hindi film, albeit set in the upwardly mobile milieu of Indians in New York (they are presumably not recent migrants, but still speak with Indian accents!), it takes a level-headed view of marriages going wrong. An adult theme to tackle, and with actors who are just about at the right level of maturity. The casting of KANK is undoubtedly bang on.

Dev (Shah Rukh Khan) is embittered because an accident ruined his career as a football player (anyone heard of an Indian pro footballer in the US?), and his wife Rhea (Preity Zinta) is a successful magazine editor.

Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan) is supposed to be madly in love with Maya (Rani Mukherji) — though he forgets his wedding day because he is in what looks like an orgy). Well, he happens to be the son of a highly sexed father "Sexy Sam" (Amitabh Bachchan excelling even in a role beneath his dignity), who is constantly surprised in bed with a call girl. Maya is not just sexually frigid, she is also sterile (talk of pop psychology) and suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder.

Maya and Dev are both such morose and surly characters, that they deserve each other — only Karan Johar stretches the obvious for over three hours, as the relationship between the two moves from friendship to love, with stages of being each other’s confidants and advisors. In a scene inspired by the famous When Harry Met Sally restaurant scene, Maya teaches Dev how to seduce his wife (she is hardly an expert though!) in a furniture shop, and the baffled gora watching their antics says, "I’ll take this bed." Baring a few gags like this, KANK is rather lacking in humour — and Dev bullying his little kid (Ahsaas Chanana) is just not funny, though it is clearly meant to be.

The script is a bit too schematic, and considering New York is a huge city, the characters move in a very small circle, always at the right place at the right time — or rather where the director wants them to be. A particular railway station is where a lot of the revelations happen — such sloppiness not expected from Karan Johar. And anyone who uses the done-to-death railway station/airport climax now should have his knuckles rapped — even as a homage it doesn’t work anymore.

What does work, however, is the ultra glossy sheen Johar (and his DOP Anil Mehta) gives the movie. And the performances are exceptional — Rani Mukherji and Abhishek Bachchan leading the pack with Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta not too far behind. Amitabh Bachchan is, of course, a class apart.

Even though he could not lend it much depth, at least Karan Johar attempted a serious marital drama without being judgmental. This was like putting a toe in to test the temperature of the pool — maybe his observations about life will have more profundity in future if the audience accepts this one.