By: Dipashri Bardhan
A QUESTIONNAIRE: 1) Do you want to flee away from reality for 2 hours & 42 minutes, in order to relax your drained nerves & soul in an electrifying way ?
2) Do you love to dream about the unclouded happiness, which is barely visible when you keep your eyelids open ?
3) Do you believe in the magnetic power of unalloyed friendship which transforms a weary mind into a jovial one ?
If 'Yes', then Ayan Mukerjis most recent offering 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani' is eagerly waiting for you..Bursting with youthful energy & boiling with contagious emotion, this drama is meant to spread the current of vivacity from the optic nerves to the cerebrospinal fluid, thereby invariably invigorating our fatigued desires...However, apart from the superficial liveliness, is there really any brilliance behind this high-budget flick? Continue reading below to know the answer !!
THE MOVIE: The story is all about friendship & love, shown through the main leads; Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor), Naina (Deepika Padukone), Aditi (Kalki Koechlin) & Avi (Aditya Roy Kapoor).Shot in the immaculate locations of Manali, Udaipur & Paris, the film primarily shows how the male & female leads affect each other's attitude, supported with a permutation of light/heavy emotions + peppy dance numbers & quirky dialogues !!
'UP's : All the lead characters, as well as supporting casts precisely stole the show.Cinematography (V.Manikandan) & Editing (S.Rahmathulla) were superb, whereas Music (Pritam) & Direction (Ayan Mukerji) conveniently delved deep into viewer's soul !!
'DOWN's : So many absurd scenes are there..For example: 1) In trekking, one needs to be physically fit & for physical fitness, regular workout is essential.As displayed here, the character of Naina is like a bookworm, who is not at all into gymming or such activites.Then how come she effortlessly climbs the difficult mountain peaks, when the so called audacious Bunny feels tired every now & then ?
2) Rajasthan is considered as one of the topmost conservative places in India.There, while visiting a royal palace as part of tourism, Naina wore a Salwar-Suit which revealed (more than half & her dupatta draped carelessly without doing the work it's supposed to do) prime parts of her femininity..Look at the background crowd & you cannot spot anyone wearing such a dangerous attire.Even the foreigners were shown wearing decent clothes (for in 'Lonely Planet India', it's always advised to dress properly while traveling in India)..Well, from a commercial cinema, such an odd scene is expected though..
3) The bespectacled Naina, all of a sudden wearing contact lenses, while celebrating Holi is another shock.There is plenty of arguments regarding the color quality used in Holi & since eye is a sensitive organ, therefore it's always wise not to wear lenses during such occasions..Naina despite being a doctor did the same..On top of that, when their clothes got multi-colored after playing, both the teeth of Naina & Bunny surprisingly remained 'close up white'...
4) The Bollywood pattern of equalizing a seductive girl with utmost silliness & a studious girl with weird spectacles is another defective custom, when in reality there are abundant instances of 'beauty with brain' as well as 'ravishing fashion sense with scholastic aptitude'...It's highly annoying when Bollywood still lacks behind in such territory..Equally irritating to see Naina still wearing the same (old designed) spectacle after a couple of years, when her dress sense changed significantly...
Not to blame Deepika anywhere, it's only the people behind camera whom I am referring to for all the blunders, mentioned above !!
SOME OBJECTIONS: Am afraid I may sound awful, but the way this movie portrayed the fundamental concept of 'To dream : Not to dream' & 'To love : Not to love', that's something really shaky !! Very similar to that already famous dialogue of Bunny ("Shaadi ke basic concept mein hi jhol hai"), the writer of this film (Moshin Khan) seemed to be over sensitive regarding the idea of 'want' & 'need', hence added unnecessary water (jhol) while cooking (writing the story) a simple dish (message).Let me clarify this in two points !!
1) Love:Marriage : The typical conception of viewing marriage as the only goal of love is dysfunctional.As shown in the first half of the movie, Bunny's character strongly believes in adventure & hates to lead a stereotype married life.But, within a few years (Second half), he suddenly realized 'what he really wants from life' & left behind his age old passion for the sake of love.Once Ayn Rand quoted, "To say ‘I love you’, one must first know how to say the ‘I’.The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent entity..A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.”
The basic fulfillment of love exists in sharing happiness/sadness together + in cherishing every moment, irrespective of distance & age + in respecting the doctrine of 'space' & 'freedom' = which normally evaporates sooner than camphor when the same couple exchanges the wedding ring with each other.Then why to propagate the myth of 'being complete' via alliance, when the basement of such institution is unstable ?
2) Person:Passion : I can understand that, life becomes easy when one finds a like minded partner, but if there comes a point, where one has to choose between an explicit love (person) & implicit love (passion), then the deciding parameter obviously lies in the main focus of that particular person.Why love always has to be oriented toward a person ? It can very well directed towards a dream too, ain't it ? Love means the celebration of one's euphoria/something which one likes to do...Ultimately we all come & leave the earth alone.So why to cling on to a person to feel blessed ? That's why it looked so uncool when Bunny forgot his basic vision to tie the knot with Naina, because the script badly required him to do so, consequently leading to a cliched climax !!
INFERENCE: Thanks to all the hype, that ticket prices soared exorbitantly high for this particular cinema (Today it was Rs. 220 per head, whereas normally it stays Rs. 150 per head, in Delhi).I would suggest not to spend your money now in such shallow movies, unless you are a big fan of leading casts or believe in frivolous philosophy of love.'Yeh Jawaani Hai deewani' is a value for money if watched in a Television/DVD later on..
But keeping in mind the stupendous dance movements & some awesome moments (Especially that sequence when Aditi says that, "Love is meeting that particular person who makes you feel happy, when you otherwise think that you are content/okay with your life"), I would like to give it a 'Entertaining/Feel Good' status...
By: Dipashri Bardhan
