The Film: Khushi
Director: S.J. Surya
Producer: Boney Kapoor
Music: Anu Malik
Lyrics: Sameer
Starring: Kareena Kapoor, Fardeen Khan and Amrish Puri
RATING: 1/10
Narsimha Enterprises' Khushi (UA), remake of the Tamil and Telugu films of the same name, is the love story of a girl, Khushi (Kareena Kapoor), and her college pal, Karan (Fardeen Khan). The novel part of this story is that there's really no story - it's just incidents that make the film. Khushi and Karan fall in love but have a fight one day when Khushi blames Karan of leching at her. The two part ways but are forced to interact with each other because they had taken it upon themselves to play Cupid between two college-mates.
These college-mates are in love but the girl's father, who is too class-conscious, will not allow her to get married to the boy as he hails from a poor family. In the process of uniting the two college-pals, Khushi and Karan realise that their love for each other is not over. Finally, in a climax that's meant to be nail-bitingly exciting, the two lovers (Khushi and Karan) unite in matrimony with the blessings of their parents.
With such a thin storyline, there's hardly any drama or movement in the film. What was needed in a film of this kind were moments - funny, heart-warming, sad, cute, touching etc. What also was the need of the drama was to show the assistance Khushi and Karan offer to get the two college-mates together and, in the process, how they fall in love over again. But unfortunately, the assistance they give is sought to be established mainly though dialogues and not through scenes. Resultantly, the audience feels no sympathy - neither towards Khushi and Karan nor towards their two pals.
The right ploy would've been to evoke sympathy for the characters of Khushi and Karan while they are doing their best to get their friends together even as they themselves are not on talking terms with each other. That would've pulled the heart-strings of the viewers who then would have yearned to see Khushi and Karan meet. But as things are, the audience is simply not bothered whether the two of them meet or not. Their fight looks fake, partly because there's no emotion born out of the separation and partly because the reason for the fight is extremely silly, rather, stupid!
Khushi blaming Karan of ogling at her navel would've made sense had she always been covered from top to toe and been extremely careful of the clothes she wore and parts of the anatomy she revealed. But before the scene in which she blames Karan of shamelessly staring at her navel, Khushi is shown wearing more revealing clothes and even dancing in the rains and under waterfalls, all of which leaves nothing to the imagination of those seeing her. Wasn't she concerned about her modesty then?
The scene of Karan smuggling the college girl out of her home on her wedding day so that she can get married to the boy of her choice instead of the groom chosen by her tyrant father looks too simplistic to be true. Perhaps, the only exciting part of the film is the climax in which Khushi and Karan go to look for each other at the railway stations. But the entire film before that is too tedious to tolerate! Another major drawback is that except for Karan and Khushi, there are no worthwhile characters in the film. Although a romantic film, it lacks in romance.
Fardeen Khan shows a marked improvement over his past performances. Looking dashing, he endears himself with his free acting. His dialogue delivery has also improved. He has danced very well. Kareena Kapoor is lively. She does overact in a few scenes but overall, she infuses a lot of life into her character. Her dances are also superb. Frankly, the two lead players at least make the insipid proceedings watchable. Amrish Puri is lovable as Khushi's rustic father.
Johny Lever's comedy track has no connection with the story and it's high time our writers understood that even if such unrelated comedy can evoke laughter for the moment, it is becoming more and more irritating for the majority of the audience after the initial few comic scenes are done with.
Neeraj Vora's comedy track is truly terrible. Anup Soni and Radhika Menon, as the two college-pals in love, have no roles to talk about when they should've had roles next only to Fardeen and Kareena's in importance. They are average. Radhika Chaudhary lends some sex appeal. Navin Nischol, Beena, Gargi Patel, Sharat Saxena and the rest pass muster.
Writer-director S.J. Suryah, who had also written and directed the originals, fails miserably in the Hindi remake. His scripting is poor and his direction does not evoke emotions of any kind. And a love story in which the audience is not enthused to pray for the coming together of the hero and heroine can never succeed. Dialogue writers Bholu Khan and Aman Jafrey evoke laughter with some funny and witty dialogues. But overall, even their job is not upto the mark.
Anu Malik's music is very good. Although there's no hit, 'Jiya maine jiya', 'Good morning India', 'Hai re', the title song and 'Aaja piya' (deleted in several prints) are melodious. The 'Tere bina' song is also good. Song picturisations are extremely eye-catching. The conceptualisation and choreography of 'Hai re' (Prabhu Devaa) are superb. 'Good morning India' (Longines Fernandes) and 'Tere bina' (Ganesh Hegde) are very youthful in their picturisations. Camerawork (K.V. Guhan) is excellent. Production values are grand in song picturisations. Editing is average.
On the whole, Khushi remains a dull and dreary love story and will have an unhappy and short innings at the box-office. Although designed as a film for the youth, it will be rejected even by them. A heavy loser.
