Synopsis: Kundan (Dhanush), son of a Hindu Tamil priest
(thank goodness they explained that accent of his), goes about Benares making
trouble. And then as a child, he happens to spot a Muslim girl named Zoya
(Sonam Kapoor) who he falls head-over-heels in love with for the rest of his
days. As a teen, he commences the stalking typical of Bollywood movie love,
which causes Zoya’s family to exile her rather than have her love a Hindu. But
eight years later, Kundan is still there, still as madly in love with Zoya as ever,
though she doesn’t recognize him at first.
So. The first half of this movie is what you see in the
trailers: upbeat, funny and pretty darn adorable.
The second half turns into politics, murder, guilt, sadness
and oh did I mention SADNESS? Lots of that.
I’ve seen some films that truly fall under the “curse of the
second half” label, but this one is damn near bipolar. It’s not so much a curse
of the second half — because the second half would be fine on its own — as it
is too big a leap between halves.
Which half did I prefer? The first.
It was remarkably funny and just had a lot of things that
flat-out made me smile.
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| The Holi scenes made me smile. They are beautifully done. |
Yes, Kundan’s got that whole stalking-for-love thing going
on that I tend to hate, but Dhanush is fabulously off-beat and silly about it
in a way that just seems to somehow work. Let’s just say that it comes down to
a (not-quite-literal) fight between
him and Abhay Deol’s character for the affections of Sonam Kapoor’s, and for
once I could not side with Abhay Deol. That is a remarkable feat. And when
Kundan breaks down crying because Zoya is set to marry someone else, well, I
may have teared up a little. Maybe.
