Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Review, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Hindi Movie Review Rating

The most-anticipated film of the season comes with a showcasing of Karan Johar’s finest skills as a director who keeps remixing love stories with dimensions that change over time. In the years that he first started making films like “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”, his focus was on first-love fixations that never wavered, nor withered (even after the train leaves!) But over time, he seems to have graduated to higher levels of mature love stories that brought western sensibilities of the Bold and the Beautiful variety. Some bombed and some became blockbusters. ADHM is a fresh improvisation of a love story that begins like first love but takes on different dimensions of lust, friendship, jealousy until the pair make it back for the last time.

The storyline is pretty thin: Richierich boy Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) falls in love with a cute girl Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) in a foreign location and gets physical in the first encounter which confuses Alizeh even if she sympathises with Ayan’s pet peeves and fears including his depression over an affair with Lisa Hayndon. Alizeh, on the other hand, has a boyfriend too, DJ Ali (Fawad Khan) but for funny reasons she is ditched by him. The story should have had a poetic ending here but it doesn’t – a few twists in the interval and in the lengthy second half later, the story wraps up in typical melodrama that Bollywood brings, after making much song and dance about it.

Karan Johar’s strengths in screenwriting got a new fillip with “My Name is Khan” when he got his scripts chiseled by Syed Field. Now with an army of writers and years of making films for the global diaspora audiences, he has managed to make a palatable version of new-age love story where the lead pair burn the screen with sizzling chemistry and nuanced acting. He manages to hold your attention for most of the 157 minutes except when some melodrama and maudlin scenes take over. Where he succeeds is in taking us into the world of lovers, and their feelings of trance towards each other, and how their worlds break again and again. Screenwriting has to be boned up to bring out the intensity of such love between two actors at the peak of their acting prowess and Karan brings it out well. He ropes in the efforts of Aiswarya Rai to give depth in the second half and also makes his mentee and mentor light up the show with two darling appearances ; mentee being Alia Bhatt and mentor being the one and only Shah Rukh Khan.

In many ways, the script and the narrative remind you of the Gautam Vasudeva Menon’s “Yeh Maaya Chesaave” where the entire film revolves around the principal lovers in the story, no props, no parents, no side-bar aunties and side-kick hangout buddies to motivate you. That makes this a bright film to watch despite predictable intercepts at climax when the graph of the film falls. Karan Johar’s dramatization appears less boring than what it felt like in the nineties in ADHM and that is because he mastered the medium to entertain more than subtract the essence of the film – no more joint family messages but instead a no-nonsense narrative to love that’s mature and comes like migraine attacks in periodic bouts between consenting adults. The first half is brighter than the second half and must be noted for it’s Aha moments of discovery of love between Anushka and Ranbir as well as the spontaneity about Bollywood’s greatest hits and rotten tomato films of the 1980s. Karan’s disdain for the jhatka-matka films like Himmatwala and Maqsad (1984) will bite where it should. The last twenty minutes of the film appear traumatic to belabor the point of true love but the ending doesn’t make it a bad film either.

Performances-wise, Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma rock the show throughout. Both have an astounding command of Hindustani and their performance wows you as they ensnare you with a realistic roller-coaster of emotions. The film will make Ranbir come back in the reckoning to challenge the Khans as he shows the many phases of a forlorn lover’s struggles with dignity and style. Anushka proves she is the queen-in-making. Aiswarya’s performance is dignified though she holds her own against the duo’s blistering chemistry. Fawad Khan’s cameo must get noticed as anybody else would have floundered or distracted the main romantic track. Pritham’s music is the quintessential highlight of the film besides the lead pair as he gives another stellar output after Yeh Jawani Deewani. You can’t make out whether his BGM is better or his songs – both mesmerize you. On the whole, ADHM doesn’t disappoint you and bore you. Watch once, despite the steamy scenes.

Telugu360 Rating 2.75/5