RAB NE BANA DI JODI. Review on Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi(2008)(“A Match Made by God”)

Produced by Yash Chopra; written and directed by Aditya Chopra; music by Salim-Sulaiman; choreography by Shiamak Davar and Vaibhavi Merchant; Caste: Shahrukh Khan(Surinder Sahni and Raj) and Anushka Sharma(Taani).

In the last few years Hindi films have become slicker and faster, full of dizzying camera moves and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of editing. The technical exuberance is almost always impressive, but it is starting to seem like its own cliché.

How refreshing, then, to settle into “Rab Ne Bana di Jodi”(“A Match Made by God”), a love story that has a different pace and feel than the rec ent crop of action thrillers. “Rab, ” which re-teams the director Aditya Chopra and superstar Shahrukh Khan is “soft, sweet and slow, ” in the words of one of its songs. It deftly blends comedy, the ruling tone of the new Bollywood, with melodrama, the ruling tone of the old.

Shahrukh sports glasses and a cheesy little mustache as Surinder Sahni, a shy self-described geek who works for Punjab Power in Amritsar. Surinder is gaga for his wife, Taani(the debutant Anushka Sharma), who, because of various tragedies in the film’s first few minutes, may have lost the ability to love or be happy.

To win Taani’s heart — or just to see her smile — Surinder gets an extreme makeover and disguises himself as Raj, a swaggering goofball who favors tight jeans and T-shirts with slogans like “bad boy” Raj becomes Taani’s partner in a dance competition(“First time in Amritsar!”), and boy meets girl all over again.

Mr. Chopra’s 1995 film, DDLJ starring Shahrukh, remains a touchstone of contemporary cinema, and the two do excellent work again here. The Surinder/Raj dual role seems tailor-made(probably was) for Shahrukh, who gets to show off his twin talents: he suffers nobly and entertains with panache. And Mr. Chopra demonstrates how a director can master technology without being mastered by it. For him, storytelling comes first.(The plot has its flaws, but they’re not deadly.)

“Rab” is suffused with God talk and movie talk; religion and films are how the characters learn lessons about life and love. Are marriages – or in this case, matches – truly made in heaven by God? Can a seemingly mismatched pair be actually made for each other even though it seems completely incongruous at first look? And finally, can true one-sided love overcome all odds and win over the reluctant objet d’amor? Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi attempts to answer these questions – in the affirmative, that is – by narrating a tale that has just two protagonists and a third main character.

But for all its flaws, Rab Ne… derives great strength from the two protagonists. Without Shahrukh, the film would have had zero appeal and prospects, and SRK once again delivers with amazing conviction and intensity. As Surinder, he mixes his patent mannerisms with some brilliantly-etched details of a small-town simpleton. And SRK is helped in no small measure by one of the brightest star discoveries in recent times – debutant Anushka Sharma. All that we can say about this girl and her performance is that when you watch her it’s like watching an actress who is ten films old. Moveover, all you contenders for the best female newbie of the year. Rab Ne… may or may not make it, but Anushka Sharma will.

[Note: I had seen this movie in December 2008 but I wrote this review today(15.2.2009) and am missing some specific dialogues exchanged between Shahrukh with his friend in front of God’s photo, relating to the destiny, why God had made both meet which had made him husband of Taani in the movie; I am forgetting those and would like the readers to remind me those exact wordings. Thanks!. Pradeep Ratnaparkhi]

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