After so many memorable films made in this particular genre, coming up with a new impressive angle in a love story is quite impossible as it seems in Hindi Cinema. But surprisingly RAANJHANAA makes that difficult breakthrough in its offered content and the film surely scores its main brownie points for this very reason alone, unarguably.
Its basic storyline has many important twists and turns coming every half an hour which also might (partially) remind you of films such as MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954), KINARA (1977) & TUM BIN (2001). The film starts impressively from the childhood and then enters the adolescence age quickly where the boy gets slapped repeatedly by the girl in a very weird manner. After a brief meeting revealing their identities, the religion factor of Hindu-Muslim comes in and then both get separated as the girl goes to another town for higher studies. Meanwhile an incident of the boy cutting his wrist is also there which the girl easily forgets as she returns back to the town after a few years. Now this whole premise of the boy's one sided love is both cute and interesting and Dhanush's innocent portrayal of his true to life character is another reason that this initial hour keeps you hooked on to the screen with all its love, drama and songs.
But actually, there are too many absurdities and unconvincing liberties in the script, which don't let you fall in love with their characters completely. To be precise, in a traditional city like Banaras, a young School Girl slapping a Romeo boy several times (right in the middle of the road), not causing any panic in the people around was quite unbelievable. Secondly as the boy and girl meet for the first time, a young girl of 9th standard (coming from a conservative Muslim family) straight away putting her hand in the boy's open shirt to find his "Jenau" was again highly absurd for me and strongly disgraceful too. Thirdly, it was really funny to see that the girl, returning to the town just after 3-4 years is simply not able to recognize the same boy who had slit his wrist only for her when she was in the 9th standard.
Thankfully, just when the boy-girl love angle starts becoming monotonous, comes Abhay Deol to save the film, but then he also falls in the same trap of absurdity in the next few scenes. Now the highly weird scenes featuring Abhay Deol includes the one wherein a sudden kiss on the cheek is given by the girl right in the middle of the campus (a girl who comes from a traditional Muslim family of Banaras). And why she kisses all of a sudden? That's because she strongly wishes to prove her point that all people are not equal on this earth and some are special. Next the girl's Muslim family members of Banaras who are very particular about the religion, make no investigation about the boy, ask nothing about his family background and have no questions to ask before announcing the marriage of their beautiful daughter to him in a hurry.
However, this is where we have the major novel twist in the plot which also gets lost as the story moves further and the director misses to use the factor of guilt, love and emotion in it in the later part of his film. But wait the 'Memory Loss' absurdity re-surfaces once again here when Dhanush forgets to attend his own marriage after getting dressed for it in the tailor shop and so does his dear friend who was most interested in getting him married in order to get out of this silly love-mess.
Post intermission, we have another shocking twist and then suddenly the love story takes a major, social political turn bringing in the 'Safdar Hashmi' element into its execution. Now we have our lead characters fighting for the common man, cleaning the roads and even contesting for the elections. In short, keeping the absurdities aside, it's the first half of the film which makes an impression but the second half pulls it down completely giving it a political angle unnecessarily. Too many unrelated subplots inserted post interval, dilute the overall impact of its fine love story and the viewer loses the interest once the film crosses its desired length.
Looking from a brighter angle, cinematography plays a major role in making an impression capturing the local ambiance of the city beautifully and the dialogues make their presence felt in few enjoyable scenes. But the music (including the background score) turns out to be a quite less than expected from the maestro A. R. Rahman, except "Aisey To Na Dekho".
Performance wise, the film totally belongs to Dhanush, who makes a strong impact as an actor particularly in the second half. He wins over the viewer first with his innocence and later with his acting skill in the final hour of the film quite strongly. Sonam emotes well, yet I couldn't find anything new in her act honestly. Abhay Deol once again delivers what is required from him in a small special appearance. But why he accepted such kind of miniscule role remains a mystery. In reality, it's the supporting cast here which makes a more important contribution, wherein both Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Swara Bhaskar are truly brilliant as Dhanush's childhood friends. Plus Kumud Mishra, Vipin Sharma and Sujata Kumar simply excel in their few but important scenes in the first half.
In all, focusing only on its core issue of a one sided love, its mistakes and the guilt factor, RAANJHANAA could have reached a different level altogether in this particular genre. But in its present avatar it just remains an above average love saga with a difference. And you can watch it once just for Dhanush's sincere act to say the actual truth.
Its basic storyline has many important twists and turns coming every half an hour which also might (partially) remind you of films such as MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954), KINARA (1977) & TUM BIN (2001). The film starts impressively from the childhood and then enters the adolescence age quickly where the boy gets slapped repeatedly by the girl in a very weird manner. After a brief meeting revealing their identities, the religion factor of Hindu-Muslim comes in and then both get separated as the girl goes to another town for higher studies. Meanwhile an incident of the boy cutting his wrist is also there which the girl easily forgets as she returns back to the town after a few years. Now this whole premise of the boy's one sided love is both cute and interesting and Dhanush's innocent portrayal of his true to life character is another reason that this initial hour keeps you hooked on to the screen with all its love, drama and songs.
But actually, there are too many absurdities and unconvincing liberties in the script, which don't let you fall in love with their characters completely. To be precise, in a traditional city like Banaras, a young School Girl slapping a Romeo boy several times (right in the middle of the road), not causing any panic in the people around was quite unbelievable. Secondly as the boy and girl meet for the first time, a young girl of 9th standard (coming from a conservative Muslim family) straight away putting her hand in the boy's open shirt to find his "Jenau" was again highly absurd for me and strongly disgraceful too. Thirdly, it was really funny to see that the girl, returning to the town just after 3-4 years is simply not able to recognize the same boy who had slit his wrist only for her when she was in the 9th standard.
Thankfully, just when the boy-girl love angle starts becoming monotonous, comes Abhay Deol to save the film, but then he also falls in the same trap of absurdity in the next few scenes. Now the highly weird scenes featuring Abhay Deol includes the one wherein a sudden kiss on the cheek is given by the girl right in the middle of the campus (a girl who comes from a traditional Muslim family of Banaras). And why she kisses all of a sudden? That's because she strongly wishes to prove her point that all people are not equal on this earth and some are special. Next the girl's Muslim family members of Banaras who are very particular about the religion, make no investigation about the boy, ask nothing about his family background and have no questions to ask before announcing the marriage of their beautiful daughter to him in a hurry.
However, this is where we have the major novel twist in the plot which also gets lost as the story moves further and the director misses to use the factor of guilt, love and emotion in it in the later part of his film. But wait the 'Memory Loss' absurdity re-surfaces once again here when Dhanush forgets to attend his own marriage after getting dressed for it in the tailor shop and so does his dear friend who was most interested in getting him married in order to get out of this silly love-mess.
Post intermission, we have another shocking twist and then suddenly the love story takes a major, social political turn bringing in the 'Safdar Hashmi' element into its execution. Now we have our lead characters fighting for the common man, cleaning the roads and even contesting for the elections. In short, keeping the absurdities aside, it's the first half of the film which makes an impression but the second half pulls it down completely giving it a political angle unnecessarily. Too many unrelated subplots inserted post interval, dilute the overall impact of its fine love story and the viewer loses the interest once the film crosses its desired length.
Looking from a brighter angle, cinematography plays a major role in making an impression capturing the local ambiance of the city beautifully and the dialogues make their presence felt in few enjoyable scenes. But the music (including the background score) turns out to be a quite less than expected from the maestro A. R. Rahman, except "Aisey To Na Dekho".
Performance wise, the film totally belongs to Dhanush, who makes a strong impact as an actor particularly in the second half. He wins over the viewer first with his innocence and later with his acting skill in the final hour of the film quite strongly. Sonam emotes well, yet I couldn't find anything new in her act honestly. Abhay Deol once again delivers what is required from him in a small special appearance. But why he accepted such kind of miniscule role remains a mystery. In reality, it's the supporting cast here which makes a more important contribution, wherein both Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Swara Bhaskar are truly brilliant as Dhanush's childhood friends. Plus Kumud Mishra, Vipin Sharma and Sujata Kumar simply excel in their few but important scenes in the first half.
In all, focusing only on its core issue of a one sided love, its mistakes and the guilt factor, RAANJHANAA could have reached a different level altogether in this particular genre. But in its present avatar it just remains an above average love saga with a difference. And you can watch it once just for Dhanush's sincere act to say the actual truth.