Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Movie Review: Love, heartbreak and longing

Some golden rules of our cinema: triangles are sad, quadrangles are bitter; when love cannot find solutions, cancer is an effective alternative remedy; just like all glitter is not gold, all gloss is not happiness. All those who can sing have a distinct chance of wooing the lady in waiting even if he cannot have her for keeps. Welcome to the world of Karan Johar, which is high on style and even fabricated emotions and low on intellect.

Somewhere in Europe at a bar, the shy and recluse Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) runs into the outgoing extrovert Alizeh (Anushka Sharma). Blame it on the promos and the media; we know that this love pair is carrying baggage. However, it takes a long time for the closet to crack. So after nearly an hour of the romance (?), we are given a peep into the emotional scars that Alizeh is carrying. She is in love with DJ Ali (Fawad Khan) whose stay in the script is decided by the muscle of power in the country. Be that as it may and we (the viewer and the country) move on and we have the triangle pushing one. We then move to the theory: Self-hate is more harmful than hate towards others. The latter questions man’s relationship with man, the first implicates man’s relationship to God.

Ayan now meets up with Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) who like most other emotional coolies carries baggage. She is a poet and her publications reflect the scars in her matrimonial experience with her past, Tahir (faded, hamming Shah Rukh Khan). After a tempestuous relationship, they fallout and the main artists catch up with one another and the bruises of the past erupt with fresh wounds in place.

Hidden in the closet is a relationship, out in the showcase in an association. While Ayan, the recluse romanticist is yearning for romance, Alizeh, the cynic, has just come out of a relationship, is wary and is naturally comfortable with a friendship. The relationship (whatever name you may give it) starts on a flippant note but the chemistry of the two gets the better of them. Pyaar mein junoon hai dosti mein sukhoon hai – is the clear stance of one while the other is aching for romance and love.

Built in a world of Karan Johar characters, each character except King Khan is etched credibly if not in detail. For long very long, the filmmaker spends time and energy building the relationship between Ayan and Alizeh. The predictable crazy romantic line in which the earlier part of the film takes is misleading and if you survive, it you could be ready for the most mature Karan Johar product till date.

Aishwarya Rai looks stunning which is her ticket to fame. Never very pretentious of her acting she keeps that intact. She comes in as the reluctant, but as heady seductress walks out of the script in haste with relieved assurance that with her goes Shah Rukh Khan who anyway looks woefully out of place.

The film belongs at one level to Pritam and his music. It also has some fine dialogues and poetry: sample the ones like stated before and: Zid mere hai kyonki dil mera hai; mein kisiki zaroorat nahi, kwaish bannachahti hoon.

Take the reference to Noor Jehan’s masterpiece old classic ‘mujko pehle si muhabbat mere mehboob na maang’ shows the film is sensitive. It is dealt with raw honesty and credibility. However, with Karan Johar you need to curtail his indulgence, ration his stock, clip his shots and edit his shoot. Nothing can justify 170 minutes of the tale and considering that a part of it was politically edited!

The film, however, surely belongs to the brilliance of the lead pair: the extremely talented Ranbir and the fizz-filled Anushka. They both add dollops of credibility and sincerity to the roles. They put their script to life and credibility.

They sustain the film, hide its shortcomings, attract the young in the audience and retain the rest with the power-packed performances they are capable of.

The film is built around the premise that Ellie Wiesel once said: An invisible force compels me to walk a stretch of road, my head bowed or held high, alone or at another’s side and we call that life.

Cast: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma
Direction: Karan Johar
Genre: Romance-drama
Good: Performances
Bad: Unacceptably long
Rating: 3