1 week Ago By Subhash K Jha
The Tamil boy from Jamshedpur did it! Belying all the myths about television stars being unacceptable on the large screen R. Madhavan delivered a clean sixer in this romantic comedy about love’s labours lost, oops, and then suddenly regained. Unconsciously, unconditionally, and completely, Hindi film debutant Madhavan stole the show from all his co-stars in producer Vashu Bhagnani’s snazzy remake of the Tamil blockbuster Minnale.
For all its flaws. This is perhaps the best film that Bhagnani has produced so far. ALSO READ: When Dia Mirza Got Uncomfortable With R Madhavan's Role In RHDTM: His Character Was Stalking Me Crisp on the top, and stuffed with appetizingly yummy ‘feelings’ below the sleek surface, Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein (RHTDM) bettered Bhagnani’s earlier romantic comedy Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai content style and acting.
Though a film about young love, it isn’t callow or gawky in its preoccupations. The aimless protagonist and his four cronies-buddies seem straight out of producer Vashu Bhagnani’s earlier hit Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai. But the predictable pastiche dissolves as director Gautham Menon swiftly and slickly swerves the story into Maddy’s post-college life.
The search for true love (after Dad Anupam Kher almost declares his sonny-boy to be gay in full public view) leads Maddy straight into the purview of the pale and pristine beauty Reena (debutant Dia Mirza). When Maddy begins to drool over the unresponsive beauty you do wonder what he sees in her in the first place. But opposites do attract.
And Maddy goes enthusiastically for Reena’s attentions, with cinematographer Johnny Lal’s keen camera lenses (capturing the flamboyant colours of first love) in hot pursuit. Maddy’s courtship of Reena for five days as he poses as her mysterious fiance from the US, is smoothly tongue-in-cheek, intelligently delineated, and charged with an anxious energy that is sourced to the protagonist. In sequences such as the one where Madhavan (Maddy is his nickname in real life) jumps into an autorickshaw and babbles non-stop to win Reena’s attention, or when he chews on chicken dishes with her at a restaurant though he’s a vegetarian, Madhavan simply takes over the show, rendering the romance in the richest comic-book colours obtainable to modern cinema.
Whether it’s the comic courtship in the first –half or the rather sombre second half when Maddy refuses to take a no from Reena(back then, stalking was known as courtship) and hounds her with his obsessive love and determined dementia, director Gautham Menon conceives his scenes with affection pride and a bouncy fluency. Though the romantic comedy with deep dark streaks in the later half is about innocent love there’s an underlining current of dangerous sexuality to the seemingly innocent mating game. “I could have done anything to you in those five days when I posed as your fiancee, but I didn’t,” Maddy rages against the shocked, humiliated, betrayed, and unrelenting Reena.
“Such girls should be taken to a corner and...
.” Maddy checks himself in a fit of rage after being rebuffed. If this was mouthed today there would be serious trouble.
Whether playing the refreshingly revivified courting game or turning darkly demanding later on, Madhavan simply sweeps you in the tides of his unmistakable charisma. His character requires him to laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously. To the role of the uncalculating misfit, Madhavan brings the swagger and elan of James Dean and the wholesome boy next door appeal of Rajesh Khanna.
Though Madhavan is no stranger to the camera, this is definitely the best Hindi film debut since Hrithik Roshan. In a film throbbing with life, Dia Mirza is listless even when she could have soared and scored. Saif Ali Khan as Maddy’s chief adversary in college and later in courtship has an uncountoured role which he plays with blurred convictions.
After Dil Chahta Hai, one would expect Saif to be comfortable in another ‘young’ film. Perhaps he hadn’t reckoned with the presence of the scene-chewing Madhavan. The supporting cast is watchable though a little too eager to please.
Anupam Kher as Madhavan’s bum-chum dad has one superb sequence with his screen-son when just before the heartbroken boy is scheduled to fly off to San Francisco, the papa jokingly consoles his son, “I’ve heard there’re some very pretty air hostesses in the flights to San Francisco.” ALSO READ: Sound Sessions | Harris Jayaraj's Unknown Stories About Composing RHTDM Songs - 'Beautiful Musical Art' Of course, Maddy doesn’t fly off. And of course in true Hindi film style, true love triumphs at the end.
And how! It’s in the way the Gautham Menon stitches together the thin threads of the romantic theme that the age-old boy-meets-girl yarn attains a splendid centrality. The songs composed by Harris Jayaraj are unforgivably remarkable. Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Bollywood, Entertainment News and around the world.
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