Genre films essentially ask the audience, "Do you still want to believe this?" Popularity is the audience answering, "Yes". Change in genre occurs when the audience says, "That's too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated,” as per Leo Braudy in his book ‘The World in a Frame: What We See in Films’.
When it comes to Indian directors, the most of them are comfortable with love stories. Hindi movies are more or less the same dish cooked by different chefs. Vishal Bhardwaj goes for dark explorations, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is more about cultural grandeur, Karan Johar leans on collective family drama of relations, and then comes Imitiaz Ali with his self-discovery through love and passion.
The Hindi movie industry has seen a plunge in box office with the failure of fairly budgeted love-story movies like ‘Ok Jaanu’, ‘Half-girlfriend’, ‘Raabta’, ‘Meri Pyaari Bindu’, ‘Mubarakan’ and ‘Munna Michael’. One thing that they all had in common was the genre they all shared: love, like most Hindi movies do. Even signature directors like Shaad Ali, Anees Bazmee and Mohit Suri could not save their respective sinking ships.
Love: Mystery and Miracle
‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ (JHMS) was no different with Imitiaz Ali, who gave critically acclaimed movies like ‘Socha Na Tha’, ‘Highway’, ‘Jab We Met’, ‘Rockstar’ and most recently ‘Tamasha’ in the recent past. The introspective storyteller combines with the ultimate king of romance in India, Shah Rukh Khan in the lead, to give another endearing story self-discovery, a win-win situation by all means.
Only time shall tell how successful JHMS will be at the box office. The numbers that SRK, Ali (Imtiaz) and leading lady Anushka Sharma can pull in with their stardom and previous works might be decisive, but the movie has already disappointed most of us. I had already skipped couple of SRK movies like 'Raees' and 'Dear Zindagi' in the past after the impasse he bulldozed me with 'Fan'. This time the zealot for Imitiaz Ali had drawn me to theatre.
The story of the movie revolves around Harry (Shah Rukh) and Sejal's (Anushka) self-discovery in a journey across Europe. Sejal decides to stay behind to find her lost engagement ring after her family holiday ends. For unusual reasons, she is all alone not even without her fiancé, with whom she supposedly had a serious altercation over a family heirloom. Harry, a runaway Punjabi tourist guide, is the only familiar option for her, whom she convinces to accompany after several attempts by Harry to dodge her.
Harry is a self proclaimed cheap and sexually frustrated guy, who has a bad reputation of being a womanizer. He is lonely though. He is stylish, adept with his earnings, living same day again and again, but misses his home Punjab badly. Meanwhile, Sejal is a beauty with brains to be an LLB graduate, determined but dumb enough to find herself in all the awkward situations. She is a happy-go-lucky figure that is definitely going to inspire our hero by the end of the movie.
The first half of the movie is enjoyable, goes with the motion. Unlike his previous films, probably, this time Imitiaz had to explain little about what kind of role SRK will be playing. He is a natural fit for this. Except the problem that he is now struggling to hide his growing age.
Anushka is convincing with her acting skills, helped by some raunchy fashion quotient. The direction is nothing less than what you expect from Imitiaz Ali movies.
Going back to Braudy's quote, Ali has done it again. A full of life girl rescues a hurting, lonesome and depressed guy. It’s perhaps unfair to expect something new. The title itself suggests that the film is going to be bits of ‘Jab We Met’ and ‘When Harry Met Sally’.
Maybe, even Ali realized he will need someone like SRK to lead him this time. It is a tried and tested formula, but tiring shtick of self-discovery through love. If ‘Tamasha’ was the pinnacle of Ali's genre, the movies are sure to go downhill from there on.
The evocation of nostalgia from his past films is evident. They evoke the romanticized past. But the audience is getting tired of it.
