Film: “Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na”
Cast: Imran Khan, Genelia D’Souza. Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak, Manjari Phadnis
Director: Abbas Tyrewala
Rating: ***

Abbas Tyrewala’s directorial debut, which stars newcomer Imran Khan, has a certain sparkling spirit, a zest for living life and a certain zing about the way the characters look at life and love.

It’s not only about the way the characters’ exuberant yearnings connect with the audience, it’s also about the casual, free-flowing events and dialogues in the narrative that give the characters an edge over other urbane youngsters who have come and gone in the past.

The bunch of collegians here take their cues from Farhan Akhtar’s “Dil Chahta Hai”, Rakeysh Mehra’s “Rang De Basanti” and even Karan Johar’s “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”, but the plot is endearing and fairly original despite the derivative echoes.

While the supporting cast of friends are both real and tangible, at the core of this romantic musical are Jai (Imran) and Aditi (Genelia) who are ‘best friends’ in the coolest sense of the term. Bantering bum-chums at the surface but sharing a much deeper bond underneath - all their friends can see that the twosome are made for each other. But they can’t.

It’s an exceedingly old formula for a romantic comedy given a fresh new spin by a storyteller who picks moments from ordinary lives and converts them into a celebration of life and love.

Old songs (mainly R.D. Burman) and new original music by A.R. Rahman coalesce while Jai and Aditi’s love story goes through several twists and turns. And they finally arrive at the traditional end-game for romantic films - the grand reunion at the airport seconds before the girl is scheduled to take off for good.

The flurry is charming, though a little too self-consciously designed at times. Peep underneath. And you see the narration covering a lot of familiar ground.

Every actor pitches in at just the right volume of vivacity. Imran has a fresh face, is original and possesses a natural screen presence that immediately connects him with the audience.

There are stand-out supporting performances by Naseeruddin Shah (playing Jai’s dead father in a portrait), Ratna Pathak (Jai’s mom), Paresh Rawal as a boorish cop and Arbaaz and Sohail Khan as a couple of outlandish cowboys.

Then there’s Manjari Phadnis as the hero’s could-be love interest. Living in perpetual denial, she thinks her embittered parents (Rajat Kapoor and Kitu Gidwani) actually love each other under the acrimony.

The characters never claim to be extraordinary in their desires. It’s their ordinary dreams and down-to-earth desires which give the narration a spirited spin.

And all those playing Imran and Genelia’s friends are also superb.

While Genelia is a natural in most scenes, Imran’s unassuming boy-next-door personality lends itself with picture-perfect precision to the mood and tenor of the narration.

Here’s a young actor who has a long innings ahead. He doesn’t think before he acts. It’s not about how deep he goes into his character, it’s more about how much at home he is occupying the space provided by the script.

“Jaane Tu…” doesn’t have any message for the audiences. What it has is an honest story about a bunch of credible characters told in a fashion that’s casually trendy and warm.

Manoj Lobo’s cinematography and Shan Mohamed’s editing assist the director in making a film that you’d probably like to watch again just to see if you missed out a vital bit of the characters’ lives while they were looking for love.

Film: “Love Story 2050″
Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja, Boman Irani
Director: Harry Baweja
Rating: **1/2

A star has most certainly been born. There are no two ways about it. After watching Harman Baweja sing, dance, emote and entertain in this Adlab presentation for a full three hours, one wonders if there is anything that this Baweja boy from Bollywood can’t do.

Yes, maybe there is something Harman can’t do. He can’t make us forget for even a minute that he knows every component of the camera although he has never acted before. The confidence level stops just short of being cocky and overdone. He is never short of a positive and productive attitude.

It is clear that producer-director Harry Baweja has made “Love Story 2050″ as a showcase for his son’s aptitudes. To that extent, the film works wonderfully, creating repeated opportunities for the debutant to shine.

The script - sprawling across two time phases and three hours of playing time - is a simple love story of two very good looking people coming together in the svelte, sweltering, simmering climes of Sydney, moving apart and then going into a futuristic mode without alienating themselves from the romantic genre that this uniquely-designed film inhabits.

Harry Baweja happily avoids the pitfalls of pedestrianism even when the boy-meets-girl plot gets into a trite and repeatedly-tested mode.

The protagonists share a precious, fragile and tender chemistry. A butterfly perches itself on the girl’s trembling hands and manoeuvres her heart into places where there’re no tell-tale signs. The butterfly becomes a likeable leitmotif in the plot. The courtship and romance is done in shades and words that leave us smiling. The initial scenes are actually far more interesting than they appear.

The boy tells the girl to do something that she has never done before. How about shop-lifting? He suggests. She suggests he recite some poetry for her. Javed Akhtar does the rest.

By the time Harman and Priyanka sing their first two duets (Anu Malik at his soft and tender best) we’re convinced that they care deeply for each other. It’s in their eyes. No kisses and cuddles needed. Only cuddly robots. For the first time in a Hindi film, two robots serving as the protagonists’ companions are given prominent places in the plot. And they aren’t just props. They are entities with a mind and personality of their own.

The entire courtship game stretching into two time zones is played out with an endearing innocence, and a focus and finesse that re-define the boy-girl formula in a language that’s sassy and trendy without ever lumbering into the lurid.

Towards the second half, when Harman flies into a futuristic Mumbai to retrieve lost love, the flying cars, the humane robots and the psychedelic dance numbers tend to overpower the basic romantic structure of the plot.

Harry Baweja could have avoided the extravagant excesses in the sky. How long can you watch flying cars and talking robots? After a while you restlessly begin to search for that romantic core which, blessedly, is never too far away from the narrative’s range of interests.

The second half, when a zany scientist (Boman Irani in a weird wig and silly smirk) transports the lovers and the audience into the future, has been done with an élan and flamboyance that leave us enthralled.

Vijay Arora’s camera work is extraordinarily rich in colours and style. The same goes for Priyanka’s sartorial grace. Her two roles are brilliantly defined by the clothes. Fortunately, Priyanka goes deeper in search of her characters’ core. The repressed poetic persona in the first half and the brassy red-haired rock star in the second-half are two different entities.

But make no mistake. “Love Story 2050″ belongs to debutant Harman from first frame to the last. And all his co-stars know it. They all sort of move back to let the Baweja boy take centrestage.

Harman demonstrates an endearing all-purpose showmanship. He dances like a dream and gets gooey-eyed and sentimental in love scenes as though Romeo had just fallen off the balcony while serenading Juliet, bruising more than just his heart. This newcomer is to the camera born.

Wisely, the narrative restricts itself to the ‘love’ part of the love story, creating pockets of asexual passion (not even a peck between the actors) without making cuteness a fetish and a fad.

A whole lot of visible and intangible effort has gone into building this colour-consumed atmospheric world of sights sounds and melodies that represent the harmony of the spheres in optical splendour.

Finally though, the effort doesn’t overpower the heart content and intent of the plot. This is actually a far better film than its genre and lavish budget would suggest.

Avoiding the vulgarity of overstatement but focusing on Harman and Priyanka to the point of making other characters appear largely redundant, “Love Story 2050″ offers a world where dreams and fantasies have a properly-designated place. We aren’t in it just for the pleasure-ride.

If you see Isha Kophikar zipping past on the pillion seat, with a dude riding the bike, don’t get those naughty ideas. It’s only her fitness trainer giving her a ride to the classes.

No, it’s not a way to save petrol giving the rising fuel price. Just that isha’s driver has had a mishap and has to be off his feet for a whole month! Now, since Isha is totally and diligently into fitness, a month’s absence on her driver’s part sent her into a panic mode since she doesn’t like missing even a day of her fitness class and she had already missed about a week.

But then, where there’s a will there’s a way and Isha’s solution is hitching a ride with her trainer. Oh, did we mention sha loves bikes? Yeah, she does… isn’t that nice? She gets a ride on the bike and doesn’t miss her fitness classes. If you wanna know how serious she is about these sessions, she goes for them at 5.30 am without fail and then gets about other regular work.