Mohabbat Kyon Kiya. Review on Mohabbatein

To say that Mohabbatein has been, Aditya Chopra's second film following Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (DDLJ) which was easily the best mainstream Hindi film, had much hype and expectation surrounding it. The big question was would the film live up to it? The answer sadly is, no, not quite. An inconsistent screenplay, thin characterizations, plot implausibilities and lack of depth and substance mar an otherwise luscious looking film with strong lead performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.

Narayan Shankar (Bachchan) runs a Gurukul, the finest all boys education centre in the country with an iron hand. He is a strict believer of tradition and opposes any sort of change. Three students Vicky (Uday Chopra), Sameer (Jugal Hansraj) and Karan (Jimmy Shergill) who have joined Gurukul become best friends and roommates. Vicky falls for a rich Miss Ishika (Shamita Shetty) in the neighboring girl’s school, Sameer meets up again with his childhood buddy Sanjana (Kim Sharma) but she already has a boyfriend and Karan (Jimmy Shergill) falls in love with Kiran (Preeti Jhangiani), a married woman whose husband has been missing in war for two years.

Enters our hero Raj Aryan (Shah Rukh), a music teacher who with his unorthodox ways encourages the boys to go after their loves. Expectedly there is a clash in views with Narayan Shankar, a man who has never believed in love. Raj's concern with making sure that the boys' love stories blossom stems from his own love story in his student days at Gurukul with Megha (Aishwarya Rai), Narayan Shankar's daughter, which ended tragically with her killing herself due to Narayan Shankar's stern opposition of the romance.The clash between the two men and Narayan Shankar's final realization that he was wrong is what the film is all about.

Much of the problems in the film lie with Narayan Shankar's character. The conflict between Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan had great dramatic potential and while there are several clashes between the two, none really rise to any high levels. Amitabh, who keeps spouting the dialogue about how much he abhors change, seems to agree readily with Shah Rukh's requests much too easily. And for a man who at the beginning of the film had said that if anyone is caught breaking the rules of Gurukul even once, he would be expelled, he tells Shah Rukh he knows the boys have been breaking the rules regularly and going out to meet the girls yet does nothing about it. Why? Bachchan stresses in his opening speech how students for Gurukul are specially selected from all over the country so how is it he never saw Shah Rukh as a student? And more so when he expels him. Surely he would have interviewed each student personally before selecting him.

When Bachchan speaks about Gurukul being the best education centre in the country and producing many eminent successful people, surely you want to know what is it in the method of education that makes Gurukul unique; but apart from one shot in the montage not a single scene takes place in the classroom in the entire 3 1/2 hours of the film!

Further when Bachchan finally admits defeat in the end, he mentions that ex-students from Gurukul had a bit of himself in them and now he hopes that the present students would have a bit of Raj Aryan in them. This takes away from the very fact that he was proud to be a part of the success of his ex-students from Gurukul thanks to his education policies. And what about those ex-students now and their achievements? Does this suddenly make them losers then?

Perhaps Shah Rukh's character of Raj Aryan would have been far greater had we actually seen his romance with Aishwarya and then felt his loss. And nothing in Shah Rukh's actions actually justifies his dialogue at the end of the film to Amitabh that he came back to Gurukul for him - to join him in getting over his grief for his daughter. He just seems to be a teacher with freewheeling beliefs and the clashes between him on Amitabh are purely on those points which go on to be more confrontational when he reveals his identity as Aishwarya's lover.

The three love stories not only take away from the central conflict but unfortunately unlike DDLJ where the process of falling in love was so beautifully handled, none really develop satisfactorily. Also among the three boys really only Uday Chopra's character is different and 'cool' while Jugal and Jimmy are almost similar. Perhaps having too many characters and too many stories to tell takes its toll. Also like most Hindi films women are not really allowed to have a mind of their own. Kim's boyfriend has been made a twit so it is easy for her to jump into Jugal's arms (I hope even I get a chance like Jugal). But what if he was a really nice guy? And even if Jugal loved her couldn't she actually love someone else especially as she hasn't seen Jugal in the last 6 years in the all-important ages of 14-20? Preeti too goes to Jimmy when Amrish Puri, her father-in-law, finally relents.

And even the biggest strength of Yashraj Films - its music while hummable is nowhere near the high standards set by DDLJ and Dil to Paagal Hai.

This not to say that Mohabbatein is a bad film. It is still better than most films made in the country but an Aditya Chopra film carries expectations of a far more quality and flawless product and Mohabbatein unfortunately does disappoint on that count.