Movie Review: Jab We Met

It's warm, it's cuddly, it's adorable, and it's telling the truth in the disclaimer at the beginning - it's fictional. Obviously, characters like Aditya Kashyap and Geet can exist only in imagination. But we are used to letting go of our need for "resemblance to reality". And once you do that you begin to identify with the emotions playing on the screen at that moment, even though the character as a whole is pretty unreal.

Life is unambiguous when it is black and white. Everything is crystal clear. My problem with stories usually begins when people transition from black to white (or vice versa) without going through the gray. Here, it irritates, it nags, but soon enough the dialogues and the sheer charm of the actors playing the characters take you away from thinking too much about it.

The dialogues have a very fresh feel to them. They are outright funny at times and quite perceptive at others. And they are hardly ever mundane (except the one given to Dara Singh!). What I found most interesting is that, whether comic or thoughtful, they were very believable.

It must be some sort of an art form to actually make use of Kareena Kapoor's over-capacity to bubble and sparkle - it's very well woven into the story. I have always liked the way her eyes express her character's sorrow. But, in the movies I have watched so far, it is usually a glimpse, just a flicker. Here however, she retains the tone impressively for a longer time. It is also great to see Shahid Kapoor get the chance to show his maturity as an actor. As clichéd as the events might turn out to be, you don't want his character to be hurt.

How can escapist cinema survive without its song and dance? We have plenty of foot-tapping numbers with fresh lyrics. The visualization of the songs was also done well. Especially, tumse hi - makes you really believe that the characters are in love.

The length of the movie works against it. The average runtime of a movie in recent times is about two hours. There should be a very good reason for me to stay the extra 20-25 minutes, without fidgeting. And in this case, there was no spectacular cause to hold me. Tarun Arora's (Anshuman's) sequences were handled rather shabbily - almost as if they were intentionally ignored so that the audience does not empathize with him. They should have been cut down to bare minimum. And Dara Singh was absolutely, totally, completely avoidable - from all aspects - relevance to story, line(s) given to him, and the way he delivers them.

While watching the movie, there were various points at which, I wanted the script to take an unexpected turn. A turn that would make it a little more substantial than just "time-pass". But, that was not to be. It's silly, it's mushy-mushy, it's not to be taken seriously at all - it's a perfect date movie. No more, no less.

Rating: Wait for video release

 

Rating Scale (best to worst):
• Must see - on the big screen
• Watch for sure, preferably in theatre
• Wait for video release
• Watch if you have nothing better to do
• Switch channels if it's on cable!