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Movies Ashdoc's Movie Review---Hamari Adhuri Kahani

ashdoc

Movie Critic
SPNer
Jul 19, 2011
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The film has been hyped to be be a semi autobiographical film based on the relationship between famous director Mahesh Bhatt's mother ( who was second wife of his father ) and his father and stepmother . But I frankly could not understand where the similarities between the film's story and Mahesh's real life story are to be found . It has been directed by Mahesh's nephew Mohit Suri presumably with inputs from Bhatt .

The similarities between Mahesh's real life story and the film can't be easily found because instead of one man having two women ( like Mahesh's father had , which is a commonplace occurance ) the film shows a woman having two men , or rather caught between the two .

Vidya Balan has been brought up in a hyper conservative family which forces daughters to marry husbands selected by their fathers without the daughter having a say in her marriage . So Vidya is married off to Rajkumar Rao , who himself is a fundamentalist and gets his name tattooed forcibly on Vidya's arm . But after a few years he is kidnapped by militants in the remote jungle area of Bastar and has his name falsely implicated in a murder case with the police while he is kept as a prisoner by the militants . Clinging to the ancient customs and traditions of the land , Vidya remains waiting for him along with her son instead of finding a man for herself as advised by her feisty and outspoken mother in law.

But her work as a florist comes to the attention of Emraan Hashmi ( who plays a big businessman who owns many hotels across the globe) due to their shared love for the same lilies . The reason for the attention---Vidya and her son's story is similar to that of him and his mother....and Emraan finds an emotional connect with Vidya . And he soon proposes to her , introducing her to his mother who coaxes Vidya to fall in love....

The lilies....sorry roses have just begun to bloom in Vidya's life when her husband makes his reappearance , and even though he is an innocent man falsely framed in a police case he behaves as a villain by refusing to accept Vidya's relationship with Emraan and harking to the ancient asiatic traditions which keep women bound forever to men in the backward east .

So what will happen to Vidya's romance with Emraan ?? Will love triumph over the odds ?? Can Vidya break the ancient shackles of tradition to reunite with her love ?? Or , as the movie's title suggests the story will remain unfinished waiting perhaps for a part two ?? What will her long lost husband do to stop her relationship ??
The movie has some interesting answers in true Mahesh Bhatt style....

While watching the movie I did feel that the director sure had the ambition of making an ambitious movie which would take us on an emotional roller coaster ride while raking up the issues of women's rights and the fallacy of holding on to useless outmoded customs and traditions . The combo of Mahesh Bhatt and Mohit Suri wanted to make a film that cries out against the injustice of it all....

Sadly , the women in the audience who were obviously being targeted for gaining their sympathy were not feeling any sympathy while much of the movie was happening....
Instead , the women were openly sniggering at some of the scenes and dialogues of the film , for they seemed so cliched and staged rather than spontaneous . Some of the male characters seemed excessively regressive in order the make them appear villainous .

But the director Mohit Suri was rentlessly persistent in his attempts to give an emotional touch to the movie and he finally silenced the sniggers with a fine climax that really finished the unfinished story and gave us the 'Mahesh Bhatt touch'---something that I had come to see in the movie . I was able to return home with some satisfaction on my face , for what is a Mahesh Bhatt backed film without a complex twist in relationships that crosses the line of the ordinary---something that I got to see in the end of the film .

Problem is , the first part of the film was without the intensity expected ; where was the depth of the emotion called love that was supposed to exist between Emraan and Vidya---it was not present . The dialogues seemed shallow and the audience was not able to empathize with the happenings in the story.
It was with the entry of Rajkumar Rao that the story got real impetus , and the audience was able to connect with the movie .

Of course , the director was nothing if not rentlessly persistent and the level of sacrifice to which Vidya goes for her husband Rajkumar Rao and the extent to which Emraan goes for helping Vidya and the fact that Rajkumar Rao is forced to admit the reality of the relationship between Emraan and Vidya in a most curious manner does take the film to a certain level....

Acting not really special by anyone , though no one was bad . Photography was okay , but not great either . But music was decent and songs were really hummable.

The film has many flaws , especially the fact that many characters seemed unnecessarily orthodox for educated and urbane people . It seemed that the orthodoxy was deliberately staged in order to try to make a compelling tale of a much wronged woman . But in the end I got what I wanted , a coherent ending to a complex and twisted tale . That the ending came in a beautiful field of Emraan's and Vidya's favourite lilies in the middle of nowhere made it all the more palatable....

Verdict---Decent .
Two and a half stars .
 

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