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Dil Jo Bhi Kahey
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'Dil Jo Bhi Kahey' A routine love story

By Nitika Desai
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Dil Jo Bhi Kahey is a routine love story crafted purposefully to launch newcomer Karan Sharma, son of the movie’s producer, writer and director Romesh Sharma.

Sharma takes a calculatedly cautious approach to make a movie that has a little bit of everything – a love story, beautiful locations, a photogenic English heroine, a big star like Amitabh Bachchan, et al. After all, he is launching his son. But he doesn’t work upon the story and screenplay that well. The result is a skin-deep, ineffectual love story laced with some drama that hardly stirs any emotion.

Parental

opposition, a hackneyed theme in most love stories, is the pivot of this romantic tale. But here the parental opposition is not because of rich-poor difference, or some enmity, but because of different social and cultural backgrounds of the two lead characters.

The film tells the story of Jai (Karan Sharma) who goes to Stockholm, Sweden, to study. There, he meets an English girl, Sophie (Annabelle Wallace). After an initial awkwardness, the two become friends and then lovers.

By the time the two finish their studies, there is only one thing on their mind – to tie the knot. But there is a problem.

Sophie’s arrogant and resolute father (Malcolm Stoddard) doesn’t approve of the relationship. Nor is Jai’s orthodox mother Sandhya (Revathy) willing to accept an English girl as her bahu.

Jai’s father Shekhar (Amitabh) is a liberal minded person who cares for his son’s feelings. He is like a friend and a mentor to Jai.

Things change drastically after Jai’s father loses his job and his mother is hospitalized. An emotional Jai decides to call off his relationship with Sophie and agrees to marry another girl (Bhumika Chawla), a doctor, whom Jai’s mother approves of.

Whether Jai and Sophie’s love story will reach a conclusion or will he marry the doctor, is what the remaining movie is about.

Dil Jo Bhi Kahey starts well but begins to slide down within the first half hour. Out of the blue, Sophie realizes that her father would not approve of her relation with Jai and decides to part ways. But Jai insists that they can together overcome all the odds.

And later, when the water gets to the neck, it is Jai who decides to call off the relationship. And he doesn’t have the fiery passion of a lover that audiences of Hindi films normally expect to see from a hero.

Karan Sharma makes a sincere attempt to act, but he is dogged by his lack of talent. At times he seems comfortable before the camera, and at other times he is visibly conscious. Given his limited acting skills, the young man doesn’t do a bad job considering that it is his debut. But there is lot of room for improvement as far as facial expressions and dialogue delivery is concerned.

Annabelle Wallace is very photogenic and breezes through her role with relative ease. She shows glimmers of good acting.

Amitabh Bachchan, as usual, is simply unparalleled. In every single scene of his, the superstar fills the screen with energy and enthusiasm. The holi song, which looks deliberately conceptualized to lend an added appeal to the movie, shows with unmistakable certainty that Amitabh can even do silly and puerile things (like popping his tongue out) with utmost conviction.

Revathy is adequate playing a nagging but doting mother. Bhumika Chawla leaves an impact in a marginal role. Her performance at the movie’s end is particularly commendable.

Romesh Sharma has devised a dream launch for his son. But when the story and screenplay is lackluster and without any depth, even the beautiful of embellishments cannot save the movie. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music is also plain average.

Amitabh Bachchan, Sharma’s good friend, has done his best to salvage Dil Jo Bhi Kahey. But the Big B’s best may not be enough.

Average Fare.

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