Review: Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

(Since the published version appeared today with major cuts, here's the writer's cut)

Slow Poison

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan
Director: Karan Johar
Storyline: Dev and Maya fall in love. But wait, they are married. Not to each other.
Bottomline: Karan tries to sugarcoat a bitter-pill, manufactures slow poison.

Shyam Benegal, during the International Film Festival of India last year, observed that Indian filmmakers start out with something that caught their attention from Hollywood, and in the process of setting it in the Indian context, end up making something that has no resemblance whatsoever to the original.

KANK has a few resemblances though. If `Closer' is about two American women in London, KANK is about two Indian women in New York. KANK too begins with a literally accidental meeting and gets into the thick of drama when an angry husband asks his wife if she slept with her secret lover.

Anna: "Don't do this."
Larry: "Just answer the question! Is he good?"
Anna: "Yes."
Larry: "Better than me?"

But for these two scenes that give you a deja vu of Mike Nichols' Closer (starring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen) and the premise of two couples whose lives get inter-twined, the rest of KANK is a fairly original screenplay, which sees Johar take a couple of steps away from his first two melodramatic (yet effective) outings.

The sensibility in this is more restrained (it's 'Kal Ho Na Ho' more than 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,') as we see Johar attempting a more mature representation of adults and relationships. Though he manages to achieve that well in the key confrontation scenes, you never get a 'Closer,' realistic look at the complexity of relationships.

The trappings of the Karan Johar candy-floss fantasy genre give little room for real characters and realistic situations.

The chance encounters between the characters are so many that you will wonder if all of New York City bumps into the other, and in pairs. The predictable stock of much mush, corn and contrived situations trademarked by the Johars and Chopras makes it all the more difficult to digest..

Sample: Rhea tells Maya: "Dev ko vaapas karo" (when she's just referring to a photograph of Dev that Maya is taking with her).

Preity Zinta as Rhea and Abhishek Bachchan as Rishi are backed by well-etched out roles, come out of the film with their heads held high. While Preity breathes life even into what could have been a tough stereotype, Abhishek Bachchan in the best-written role in the film steals every frame, along with his player-father Sam (Amitabh Bachchan) introduced into the film purely for comic relief and the mandatory patriarchal advice.

Shah Rukh Khan looks appropriately tired mouthing similar lines to similar characters in similar movies. But this time, his tired, cynical look is probably intentional as the King Khan plays Dev, a bad loser in love with a self-centred school-teacher Maya (Rani Mukerji)

American society is known to be more progressive and yet the Hollywood take on the same subject chose to take a more punitive angle on infidelity.

The tagline for Closer goes: If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking.
Closer is a microscopic examination of the complexity of relationships and infidelity, but with a righteous sense of morality. It underscores the importance of commitment and addresses that in the conversation when Dan confesses to Alice.

Dan: "I fell in love with her, Alice."
Alive: "Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, 'I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it', and I don't know when your moment was, but I yet there was one."

In KANK, though the lines paint them as selfishly human, the visuals and the score project them as poor innocent people who had no choice but to fall in love. The cinematic grammar including the star iconography associated with Karan Johar's brand of cinema ensure that this bitter-pill of a love story is distastefully sugar-coated.

The director ends up sanctioning infidelity just because Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee cannot be shown as the villains of the piece.

The fact that screenwriters Shibani Bhatija and Karan Johar flesh out Preity's and Abhishek's roles well enough works to the film's disadvantage because you KNOW that they both were true and loyal to their partners and left no room for complaints.

If you are to get into Dev's or Maya's pants, then no relationship is perfect.

It is that unjustified act of infidelity that will make KANK one of the most-discussed films of the year. How sacred is a committed relationship and the institution of marriage? When do you know when to give up when things are not working and till when do you try to work it out?
That's also where KANK succeeds. It breaks certain stereotypes.

The cheaters were not in love with each other before they got married to someone else.

They did not fall in love because they had evil husbands or wives who cheated on them, they fell in love because they were plain selfish and self-centred.

The cheaters though played by SRK and Rani are no heroes.

Despite the inherent flaw that Karan Johar tries to salvage them from the depths they've fallen into by giving them refuge in "a love that broke all relationships" story, KANK, unlike 'Closer,' is not about morality. It's about vulnerability.

In 'Closer,' infidelity is wrong. In KANK, it's human.

'Closer' does not forgive cheaters. KANK is more kind.

'Closer' is so dark, real. KANK sugarcoats it, makes it DISTANT.