Raanjhanaa

How Politics can ruin a beautiful story….

Politics can ruin love, politics can ruin career, politics can ruin life and Politics can ruin a beautiful story. This is Raanjhanaa!!! Just kidding! It’s not politics actually; it’s the people who start playing politics in their life ruin everything. Zoya played by a Sonam Kapoor is a Muslim girl of Banaras who is forced to fall in love with Kundan played by Dhanush in her childhood because of his consistency and typical small town – lower middle class approach to propose a girl by attempting suicide. He being a Hindu is not acceptable to her family. She retaliates; as a result parents send her to Aligarh for further studies to avoid Kundan’s proximity. But Kundan is madly in love with her and waiting her to come back. She comes back after 8 years and has forgotten Kundan (what bullshit!!). Kundan confronts her and she reveals that she loves somebody else from College. She uses Kundan to get her love. He being fully devoted to her, does whatever she says. But somewhere he has a feeling of revenge and he gets his chance. But his action leads to a dramatic turn in the story. This is first half which is a full package of entertainment. The tempo of the story is very gud up to here. 

The way the first half is edgy and spellbinding, second half is equally stretched and boring. The theme of the story gets lost somewhere. The focus of the story from the love shifts to ego fights. I agree that it is a natural progression in any love scenario. But the way it is portrayed, it does not suit story. The second half becomes a repeatedly tried story of a guy winning hearts of everyone by doing some stupid errands. And mind it, whatever is shown in movie for that cause looks petty and half baked. Towards climax, Zoya takes center stage with her feminist attitude and she even says – “Kundan, I thought you would atleast help me here but u started becoming hero yourself.” What crap!!! How much does she want to use him!!! That poor guy does everything to please her but she instead takes revenge and surrenders. 

Well I am not at all convinced by the story. I liked the sequences up to first half. But second half looks like a ‘build on set’ story. There is no depth in second half. Though the director has tried to make the character of Sonam very complex and that of Dhanush street smart & heroic and both did total justice to their characters but somehow director failed to give the characters a complete sketch and weave up a nice story around them. Acting wise, this can easily be said as the best performance of Sonam till date and Dhanush is simply outstanding; he is doing wonders when he does not know Hindi, if he learns the language, God know what he will do. Dialogues are the USP of the movies. The best dialogues are given to Murari (Mohammad Zeeshan Ayub) and Swara Bhaskar has given another good performance as Bindiya. 

Music of the movie is average. Tum Tak and Raanjhanaa are good songs and both are filmed amazingly on the streets & Ghats of Banaras. The production design department really scores. All the real locations from Delhi to Banaras are used to give the movie a real look. I like one particular scene very much in the movie when some college students try to figure out why Kundan has become thief; they take all night and finally figure out the reason as poverty. I am not sure what director wants to say here! Is it the portrayal of a group of disillusioned youth doing dharnas everywhere blindly following some leader???