In “Tum Bin 2”, Neha Sharma plays Taran, a London-based woman whose world comes crashing down around her when her boyfriend Amar slips into a coma after a skiing accident in the Swiss Alps. Shekhar (Aditya Seal) enters her life, wins over Neha’s family with his charm and eventually finds a place in Neha’s grieving heart.

Predictably enough, Amar makes a miraculous recovery and returns home. Crushed with guilt about having moved on, Neha finds it tough to work up the courage to tell Amar that she now loves someone else.

This storyline, that of a person forced to choose between a past lover and another from the present, offers nothing new for the most part. While such formulaic, done-to-death plots are hardly a challenge for viewers used to Bollywood love triangles, there are other damning factors that make the movie difficult to sit through.

For one, there’s the painful concoction of ear-splitting background music and songs. Soulful and melodious as the songs may be, they repeatedly break the flow of the narrative each time it becomes tolerably engaging.

Director Anubhav Sinha also does his own movie a disservice by having his characters speak in indecipherable riddles than in everyday language. Shekhar is particularly fond of offering unsolicited, hard-to-interpret advice on life, the universe and everything.

The movie also lasts far longer than it should. Taran’s conversation with Amar in a post-interval scene at a Sikh temple could have offered a tidy, uncomplicated ending to the film. Sadly, burdened with the self-imposed obligation of ensuring the plot line closely mirrors his first “Tum Bin” (2001), director Sinha drags the movie endlessly. The plot becomes increasingly complicated and the dialogue convoluted. The ending is messy and unintentionally funny, thanks to weepy characters who won’t stop talking.

The movie isn’t an out-and-out monstrosity though. Its best moments are those that offer light-hearted banter and scenes with little or no melodrama. Taran’s family fights and makes up like a normal family, where everyone pulls each other’s leg but also helps each other in times of distress.

Apart from Aditya Seal, whose love for tedious monologues might grate on your nerves, most roles are convincingly portrayed. Neha Sharma is impressive and breezes through her role with confidence. The women who play her sisters deliver steady performances. Kanwaljit Singh ably portrays his part of a grieving father determined to keep the morale of his family high. Aashim Gulati is a disappointment though - as Amar, he looks clueless with a permanent dazed look on his face.

 
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