Stranger than fiction - Anjaana Anjaani (original) (raw)

The greatest love stories end with death. This one tries so hard to bump its leads off in its pursuit of greatness that it fails miserably. This could very well be the story of two talented actors trying to exit a bad film. Right at the beginning, they try to kill themselves but the powers that be — the makers of this film — will not allow that. So Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra spend the entire first act, attempting suicide in different ways. But to our misery, they fail.

Then, they are given incentive to stay in the movie with the following — a trip to a nightclub , a deep sea diving experience in the Atlantic, a road trip to Vegas in a smashing red convertible, more strip tease joints, make out sessions, designer clothes and picture-perfect locations.

Overall, this is a high fashion portfolio shot by none other than Ravi K Chandran who has often cribbed about cinematographers never getting credit for the good films done. He strikes back with a vengeance making sure that all you take home from this film are the gorgeously moody visuals.

For a film that showed promise, at least in its promos, Anjaana Anjaani is unfortunately not about that beautiful romance between strangers. Nor is it the greatest love story as it projects itself. It's about two losers filled with self-pity making a juvenile suicide pact… but then, they fail even at that and settle for each other. Strangely, they also find money and resources to live their dream, despite their claims of being broke.

And there's the moral dilemma of the director — should he keep his heroine virgin? First, he tries to make us believe she's not and then changes his mind later with a really silly revelation that has “commercial constraint afterthought” written all over it. So much that it really takes away from her already warped “reason” to end her life.

Anjaana Anjaani tries hard to make the morbid look cute. But there's no way you can make a suicide attempt look like a joke because there's absolutely nothing funny about people trying to asphyxiate themselves. And it doesn't stop with one, it goes on and on as the leads try to blow themselves up as they leave the gas on, drown to death, drink bleaching powder, jump in front of a car…

Hello, all they had to do was read the script beforehand and it would've been death by boredom.That's probably why the leads were trying to exit — not as characters but as actors.

Maybe they did read the script.

Anjaana Anjaani

Genre: Romance

Director : Siddharth Anand

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Pryinaka Chopra, Zayed Khan, Vishal Malhotra

Storyline: Two suicidal strangers meet each other on a bridge and make a suicide pact to end their lives on December 31 after failed suicide attempts and fall in love.

Bottomline The leads got paid, what’s your excuse to suffer it?

Published - October 09, 2010 07:01 pm IST