Film: Anjaana Anjaani (U/A)
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, Zayed Khan
Rating: ***1/2
Here, at last, is a romantic comedy from Bollywood that actually does what romcoms are supposed to do. Anjaana Anjaani tugs at your heartstrings while at the same time tickling your funny bone.
While Akash (Kapoor) is actually a typical Wall Street corporate who loses everything he owns to the stock market crash, Kiara (Chopra) is a cheerful San Francisco girl full of life, until her childhood sweetheart cheats on her and she, too, loses everything that she ever wanted.
Akash and Kiara (fancy name!) fatefully cross each other’s paths on a night in New York when both are attempting suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn bridge. But this one, and their later attempts, all prove to be futile, prompting them to defer their suicide by 20 days to fulfil their bucket lists and live life to the fullest till they die (based on the doctrine, ‘Live each day as if it were your last’).
From swimming in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to gambling at Las Vegas, the duo realise every whim and fancy that crosses their minds. Starting off as great chums, they gradually but unknowingly fall for each other and would have lived happily ever after, if not for Kiara’s stubborn conviction that she is still in love with her fiancé.
Poor Akash (tossed around by fate, once again) good-naturedly leaves her in the hands of her fiancé and goes his own way. But like in all other Hindi films, the lead pair has to get together in the end, so Kiara realises that Akash is her only true love and both live happily ever after.
Chopra is engagingly brilliant (even when she converses with her car, called Blush), Kapoor is good, too, but is overshadowed by the female lead. Both play relatively mundane characters, unlike in other romcoms, where the characters are sometimes too refined and complicated to identify with.
The comic element in the film shows up at the right moments so that you don’t get bogged down with the occasionally agonising emotional quotient.
One annoying aspect of the film is that it breaks into classic Bollywood-type song a tad too frequently and that, too, when it is least expected (or wanted, for that matter).
The quaint locales of New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco are impressively and appealingly shot.
Anjaana Anjaani begs to differ from other done-to-death romcoms in Hindi cinema in the sheer exclusivity of its screenplay and the way the subject is developed, which both amuses and stirs you.
