Rab ne Bana di Jodi

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) deal with a love story where lovers realize their love when they are apart, Mohabbatein (2000) has conflict between the younger and older generation as main plot. And in 2008 Aditya Chopra’s third directorial piece deals with a love story between newly wedded couple, married through parent wishes (popularly known as arranged marriage). The film has a base line of - Love is when you can see and feel God like divinity in your partner.

The best part of the film is the initial piece which introduces Mr. Surinder Suri – definitely one of the best crafted and performed character in the recent time. The film has a gripping start where the protagonists and the plot are well introduced. Both Suri (Shahrukh Khan) and his wife Tani (newcomer Anushka Sharma) depict a middle class newly married couple effortlessly. Everything is fine till the time Suri converts to Raj to gain Taani’s love. It is form this point the audience starts wondering how Taani can fails to recognize her own husband. Just because he has shaved off his moustache, lost thick glasses and combs spiky hairstyle! This is hard to digest and the film looses all what it earned in the opening 15 - 30 minutes.

Suri is not an expressive enough towards Tani. And so he converts himself to Raj, a filmy hero like character who can be a friend and can cheer her up. The film fails to bring out this personality-switch issue and suffers to identity crisis. The overall feel seems that Suri enjoys being Raj, where as it should be other way round – the love towards Tani made Suri to do something out of his box, which makes him talkative, sing and dance, as suppose in his real life being quiet and simple. Secondly the film also fails to provide a valid reason on why Suri expresses his love to Tani being Raj and not being himself? Third, why is just one visit to Golden Temple and one dialogue makes Tani feel all the goodness in her husband, whereas she has already decided to run away with Raj. Forth… and I can go on. What I am trying to discuss out here is that the problem of persona. Rab ne has not convincingly shown the paradigm-shift and fails in handling the sensitivity of personalities.

I personally feel it an opportunity lost for the director who started the film with a gripping mark and left it half way. The film has some light comic moments with Suri and his yellow tiffin box, Tani and Raj in bike race and gool-gapaa competition, Vinay Pathak as Bobby Singh, but they aren’t sufficient for the audience to cheer up. In all the film fails to make a mark.

Debutante Anushka Sharma has performed perfectly well, check her out serving snacks and juices to Suri’s friend at their marriage party and her bike ride with Raj. Vinay Pathak has not much to perform, but he surely reminds us of a typical Punjabi friend in need and deed. And finally it is Shahrukh Khan who is a clear winner. Though Raj is not very different and might not be difficult for him to perform, it is Suri who is the show-stiller. Watch him doing his daily work like bathing under a tap, preparing breakfast, washing and cleaning dishes, he is worth watch when he is happy and excited. The dialogues go with his personality even when the end credits are rolling.

The music as well as background score is ok. The use of traditional instruments like harmonium complements the character like Suri perfectly. Whereas the (needless, tiresome, unexciting and ineffective) item number song with some Bollywood beauties is a waste of time - both in music and chorography. The song with kids shot in three locations - temple, mosque and church is decent enough to view and hum. The screenplay could have been tighter. As far as camera is concern, a special mention could be in the Golden Temple scene, where the camera wobble is seen very obvious. The sets are easily noticed fake. The script and dialogue needed some consistency. An unnecessary repeat and focus shift to topic like ‘what women want’ was not needed. In all the loose ends are so obvious to catch that Rab ne turn into a messy film.

This is without a doubt the poorest film in Aditya Chopra’s career as a filmmaker. The story had a substance and could have been one of the finest film dealing with mature love story. But it failed. It is only the initial piece in film that had a lasting impression on me. Thank you, Mr. Surinder Suri.