.::I am simply not entertained!::. Review on Kal Ho Naa Ho

Right at the outset, let me warn you that I am heavily biased. I simply love family entertainers. Yet I don’t like Kal Ho Naa Ho. What? I uttered it? So soon!!! And there’s still a whole review to write…

I’ll get away with the story first! A financially-strangled (thanks to a doomed restaurant) and emotionally-scrambled household (thanks to a forever-accusing granny bickering with her bahu over her son’s death and an adopted girl) gives the life of the elder daughter of the house, Naina (Preity) a monotonic, almost unmelodic tone. Spectacle-donned and a face sulked in tensions, even her masquerading-as-cool-guy friend Rohit (Saif) is unable to bring about any purple hues to her life, till the real hero steps in (U guessed it—Shahrukh) who’s a human male-angel (sans the feathers but equally fluttering eyebrows).

An eavesdropper and a peeping tom by nature, he practically barges into Naina’s family, and straightens all the bends of Naina’s life with the skill and ease of a goldsmith designing jewellery. Naina, who shrugs off the male-angel’s ever-ready-to-marry attitude by taking a shoulder from Rohit (who, after observing Naina’s sudden attention, takes to loving her) is actually all rosy-eyed for the male-angel, as in him, she’s found da elixir of life’s every problem.

This is the map now: Naina adores male-angel, Rohit loves Naina, but wait; what about the male angel? Oh, he has to return to his heavenly abode, isn’t it? Oh no! Oh yes! Sob, sob.. he’s got a defective blood-pump. So, Naina must go through a heart-break even though he loves her with all his heart. What next? Time for male-angel to play cupid and thrust her friend Rohit around Naina’s neck. The cho-chweet sacrificing plan gets caught by Naina, but the male-angel again fills in the gaps with his tears and lines that Rohit can’t dare to speak.

Naina’s again misty-eyed for Rohit, but they soon realise that the male-angel is leaving his body forever. “Why did you do this?” “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Don’t you love me?” “How could I?” I wanted to see you happy” “No I don’t love you” “Please marry Rohit”. Naina marries Rohit. And sheds a few tears as the time of male angel’s scheduled flight to heaven nears. The angel boards the flight, while Naina and Rohit live happily ever after.

How simple na? Oh, forgot to mention—the male angel is actually called Aman. Aman’s a driver who knows how to drive his neighbour’s car: exactly where to brake hard (watch him carefully holding over-drunk Naina and Rohit), where to honk (at the drop of a hat—he has the ditties ready with 200 dancers in-sync), where to change gears (he has the whole record of Naina’s family history--notice him teaching a lesson to the bickering granny about her son who went about sowing his seeds elsewhere and that the adopted girl is actually fermented from that extra-marital egg—and lo! All the family differences are shooed!), where to turn on the lights (ah! Don’t you dare miss his spiritual babble—Live for the moment, what if tomorrow doesn’t dawn?—some wisdom I tell you!) and exactly where to turn on the heater (notice him spoon-feeding Rohit on how to take a girl “in” in just 6 “din”). But of course, under the shiny bonnet of his own body hides a malfunctioning engine which chokes at the climax to garner some sympathy from the passers-by, I mean the audiences. But not mine. Sadly, Aman’s story fails to touch me. And so does Naina’s. And so does Rohit’s. What the heck yaar, the whole flick fails to touch me. And I have so many people to blame for it.

The director and the script-writer first, who puff up the whole script with absolutely lunatic and unnecessary characters (and oh-so-many), take for example, the buxom neighbour who literally throws herself on any dude, or her equally flesh-salivating sister or a granny (Naina’s dadi) who’s all roses for her neighbourhood oldie (Aman’s uncle) or the loud Gujarati parents (who welcome the bride’s family with a nursery rhyme..duh!) or even for that matter the Gujarati servant who faints every time she sees Aman and Rohit together. Its actually a revelation to see such breakaway from stereotypes with in-your-face references to homosexuality and old-age romance but when Saif and Shahrukh look rather too convincing nuzzling in a bed or sound too believable when uttering “I Love You” to each other (I actually lost count of how many times they said that!), its definitely a cause to worry. Because collectively, all of this, along with the unnecessary revelation episode of Naina’s father and countless others, slowly but steadily, snatches away the poignancy of Naina’s and Aman’s tale. Add to this the constant inconsistency in every character’s portrayal (Aman’s forever hugging, kissing Naina even after his arrhythmic heart’s revelation, Naina’s constant shuffling between Aman and Rohit and Aman and then suddenly and finally, Rohit is grossly unconvincing) and KHNH just ends up appearing one of those umpteen shallow romances vomited into audience’s laps each month in Bollywood.

And SRK is simply terrible as Aman a.la the male-angel. Completely unable to extract out Aman’s inner pain, he either hams through the subtle moments or mould out a confused, constipated face in an emotional scene that further confuses us (for proof, watch the climax). If KHNH is untolerable, I’ll put half of that blame on his shoulders which have suddenly become as brittle as his back. Saif, in comparison, is flawless and breezes through the film with élan. Zinta can’t sob loudly like a typical Hindi film heroine and with this film, that’ll be a world-known fact. Ask her to shed her tears and the result would be so jerky that you’ll be confused if it was a sob or a cough. That she shares near-zilch chemistry with both her heroes (who actually are more interested in each other) doesn’t help either. Jaya Bachchan looks pert as a jeans-clad, catholic mother and plays her doting-mother part with conviction for a zillionth time while Sushma Seth’s grey character asks her to ham, and she obeys (while we finger our ears shut). And don’t get me started on those thousand supporting artists please.

However, there are some zany edges to the camerawork and background music which uplift the film to a cetain level. But editing is rather too crisp in the climax when the film turns sombre and one yearns to at least have a glimpse of Aman’s death (but probably that was out of director’s and actor’s expertise) while choreography makes the already subtle soundtrack appear tired. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music isn’t even a patch on DCH or Armaan, save for the title track. And thanks to Manish Malhotra’s ever-burgeoning with transvestic-apparels wardrobe, SRK graduates to wearing shimmering bride-maroon coloured, heavily brocaded kurtaa with a whole mesh of mirrors draped stylishly with a chiffon black dupatta skirted with six lines of glittering silver dots, which he actually swirls a 360 degrees in true item-song fashion and makes a landing. The light-work at this moment reeks with hilarity as suddenly the whole hall is darkened and the focus is on SRK and Preity. I mean c’mon!

I don’t expect much from Johar-Chopra-Barjatya clan anyways. Just entertainment. And Kal Ho Naa Ho even fails to reach such a basic yardstick. Some light moments can’t satiate anyone on a lookout for wholesome entertainment. Simply, not recommended.