Movie Review: YEH CINEMA HAI DILEMMA

Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone’s Legs, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Ghost of Kalki Koechlin.

Director: Ayan Mukherjee

This post contains spoilers. If your last update was “Ranbir Kapoor OMG! HOT!! <3<3”, and you haven’t watched the movie yet, please go watch it and help it earn some more money. If you have already watched the movie, do not intend to watch the movie, or simply don’t give a fuck, kindly read on.

Director Ayan Mukherjee’s previous film was hailed as the coming of age film of the year. It brought him laurels, and also firmly established Ranbir Kapoor as the next big thing on screen. Now, it is kind of accepted that he is going to be the next big thing, so everyone talks about it in a matter of fact tone.

But if you look closely, you will notice that in almost every film, he plays the same character. He is always the urban, brattish, flirtatious, guy who realises something at the end of the movie. Excepting Rockstar, Barfi, and Rocket Singh, he essentially plays the same character on screen every single time.

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani is a progression of the same guy playing the same guy. Karan Johar, who took one step forward with his short film in Bombay Talkies, successfully takes three steps backward with this movie. It’s a gimmicky, sell-out sort of a film that is meant to earn 100 crores after engaging in coitus with your brain. And because my brain sometimes fancies a quickie, I walked into the movie.

Now, there are so many things terrible about the movie, but I shall focus my energies towards three aspects that stood out like sore middle fingers:

1.      The Concept of the Geeky Girl:

So amidst appropriately peppy background score, the film begins and we are transported into the worlds of Bunny and Naina. Bunny is the flamboyant extrovert who dreams of travelling the entire world. Naina is a geek who likes to read books.

Now, this is the point that pissed me off. What validation does the girl need from this hipster dude, in order for her to be cool?

Let’s look at the girl. She has consistently been the topper of the class, is well-read, has got a fabulous sense of fashion, and looks like Deepika Padukone.

But she ain’t cool. Why, you ask?

Cos she succumbed to that evil that Bollywood allows not to its heroines: Spectacles.

Through years, Bollywood has used the simple act of making the heroine wear glasses to show her as the geeky loser. Whether it is Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Na Ho, Urmila in Khoobsoorat, or Simran in DDLJ, the specs are supposed to signify that the heroine hasn’t blossomed into a bosom-heaving, melodramatic swan yet. So Boy Wonder comes and reminds her of how cool she is, in real.

Boy Wonder’s claim to cooldom is that he does extremely original stuff like flirting with girls with the IQ of a table fan, fighting with local gundas, and escaping on a pushcart. Kyunki banda jeena chahta hai, girna chahta hai, sambhalna chahta hai. Bhencho Temple Run nahi khelta ghar pe baithke?

Of course, if the heroine is wearing specs in the first half, you can rest assured she is going to get rid of it in the second half, when she ditches the glasses, and starts wearing make up and outlandishly gawky clothes, to fit the bill of the heroine of the movie.

And that is exactly what happens in the beginning of the movie.

2.      The Realisation of the Dream

While Wake Up Sid had at least a fresh Hindi film heroine, it too suffered from the Karan Johar Magic Brush Syndrome.

You see, in Karan Johar’s films, the heroes don’t really work. They have swanky jobs, suave cars, designer houses – the entire package. But no one really knows what it is that they do. In Wake Up Sid, the hero decides to pick up photography, and immediately, as predicted by Paulo Coelho, the universe conspires to bring it to him.

In Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, the hero dreams of travelling the world, and just like that – Plomp! He lands a job at Fox Traveller. Not NDTV Good Times, or Travel and Living, mind you. Fox fucking Traveller.

And then, just like that, he is selected as the host of a worldwide show. Just like that, even though he was a junior cameraman until now. The perks of being Rishi Kapoor’s son, I tell you.

So does he host the show? God knows, because Karan Johar doesn’t waste precious screen time in unwanted details like showing the hero working for a living. He comes to India on a holiday, and is given a lecture by Deepika Padukone (who, by now, has taken off her specs and become the afore mentioned bosom-heaving, melodramatic swan) about the magic of family, the joy in togetherness, and the sheer thrill of watching DDLJ in Maratha Mandir.

Towards the end of the movie, the boy decides to quit his job. He simply does it. He has apparently been chasing this dream of his, and he is one step away from realising it, and he has an epiphany, and quits his job. Work pressure, how his bosses take it, and other such details be damned.

Wonder Boy want. Wonder Boy do.

Fuck you.

3.       The Usual Bollywood Suspects

Apart from logical loopholes the size of Sreesanth’s jail cell, the film also manages to throw in every possible Bollywood stereotype known to god. Some of them are as follows:

1. Alcohol: Alcohol is to be used primarily to get people to dance. One swig of alcohol is enough to get people to dance, laugh, have a good time. In this movie, C2H6O has a larger role than Deepika Padukone, and manages to pull it off spectacularly, making everyone dance and have a good time.
2. Background Score: After a few inspireding albums, Pritam goes lazy on this one. Which means that instead of conveying a mood, the background score is pimping out the story, telling you what you need to feel. Happy scene? Major chords strummed on guitar. Dramatic scene? Violins and slow, epiphany music. You don’t need to delve into any particular scene to understand the characters, because Pritamda is doing it for you anyway.
3. Women as Doormats: As with all Karan Johar films, the heroines are A-grade doormats. They dance and whimper according to the whims of the hero. There will also be this skimpily clad woman who speaks with an accent and generally wants to sleep with the hero. The women do not really have worries like their careers, or their own wishes and desires. Their lives are entwined around the hero, their love, and their mission is to conform to everything the director does, in order to reach the climax of the film.

All in all, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani is no different from a Dabbang 2 or a Ready. It’s got Ranbir Kapoor in it, so it wears the aura of an intelligent, thought-provoking film. What it really is, is a 3 hour shitfest.

Avoid at all costs. Think of all the sex you can have in three hours!