Watch TrailerBoy meets girl. Sparks fly. Families oppose. Minds change. Lovers reunite. Happy ending. This has been the formula for quintessential Bollywood love stories across generations. The last few years might have witnessed a dry spell as far as spectacular and gossamer love sagas infused with generous doses of family drama are concerned. But filmmaker Karan Johar has finally come to our rescue. And thank god for that. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani brings about a halt to the tsunami of cop thrillers and whodunits that brought with them a wave of monotony. It takes you back to the good old times and fills your heart up with joy. But it’s so much more than the regular template of love stories.
Those who grew up on a staple diet of Bollywood films of the 1990s and the 2000s will most definitely and fondly remember how Karan went on to not just redefine contemporary mainstream cinema but also their adolescent notions of love. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham rode high on romance and familial ties. Over the next few years, Karan took a stern departure from his forte and successfully dabbled in more serious issues like extramarital affairs and religious discrimination and explored themes of college romance and one-sided love. But his ardent fans missed the original KJo quotient. And so, what makes Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani stand out is the fact that it makes for an interesting amalgamation of almost all of his previous films.
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani reiterates that opposites attract and that it’s all about loving your families at the end of the day. It states that not all extramarital affairs are sinful and has immorality written all over them. It reinforces that true love wins over everything else. And through the film, Karan also makes or at least tries to make a statement on cancel culture, a pop era phenomenon that shakes him every now and then. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani further keeps up with the changing times and touches upon the social media war of unpretentiousness versus wokeness. But how much of that works is the question.
The film revolves around Rocky Randhawa, a loud, brash, protein shake obsessed and anything-but-woke Punjabi boy who resides in the palatial Randhawa Paradise in Delhi’s Karol Bagh. His family runs Dhanlakshmi Sweets and he is all set to be the next CEO of this million dollar company. His family comprises of a misogynistic, bitter and stern grandmother and father and a suppressed mother and sister along with a shayaari loving and wheel-chair bound grandfather. One day, his grandfather falls sick at an event called ‘Punjabi Of The Year’ and starts asking for Jamini.
Soon Rocky finds out that Jamini is the grandmother of a woke and beauty-with-brains journalist, Rani Chatterjee, who leaves no stone unturned to school misogynists and sexists. The Chatterjees, on the other hand, are starkly dissimilar to the Randhawas. Rani’s Shashi Tharoor-esque mother is the senior most English professor at Delhi University and her father is a Kathak dancer. Rocky and Rani decide to play Cupids to their grandparents who had first met at a kavi sammelan in 1978 in Shimla. But as luck would have it, Rocky and Rani can’t help but fall in love with one another. Their families holding opposite ideologies, cultures and backgrounds, however, become a hindrance in their fairy-tale romance. What follows next is switching families and oodles of melodrama.
The first half of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is everything that a feel-good Bollywood entertainer should be made up of. It rides high on nok jhok, forbidden love, comedy, new-age confusion, vintage charm, gorgeous song and dance sequences including a rain sequence. In short, it’s delightful and packed with blissful surprises! Ishita Moitra hits it out of the park with almost every dialogue. Ranveer Singh’s Rocky’s dodgy English speaking skills wherein he refers to ‘consensual’ as ‘consexual’ among other things will crack you up. In one scene, he’s heard saying, ‘If Rani ki uthaani hai doli, the set has to be Rajamouli.’ Needless to say, you end up lauding every now and then. And before you know it, your expectations are set too high and it’s time for the interval.
But in the second half, the breezy and pacey screenplay abruptly drops pace. Comedy and romance take a backseat and the writers decide to pump up the drama only to make you confused if you’re watching one of Ekta Kapoor’s high-octane television soaps. Karan and his team of writers pack in too many themes. Yes, the screenplay has its heart in the right place but things turn too preachy.
When Rani starts living with Rocky’s orthodox family and Rocky with Rani’s modern and educated family, they’re headed for numerous bumps. Unfortunately, the audience suffers due to these bumps and the ham-fisted treatment of the narrative too. Rani almost becomes like an angel-cum-public service announcer as she starts dishing out pearls of wisdom pertaining to patriarchy, gender inequality and suppression of women and their desires. While we understand that entertainment is a tool to draw our focus to issues that need attention, the makers make all of this look too contrived. And this is why the second half loses the spark of the first half and appears too dragged.
Despite these flaws, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is packed with some lovely and memorable moments. Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi meeting each other after years and romancing through their sparkling, eloquent eyes with Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar playing in the backdrop is a treat to the sore eyes. The background score, including the instrumental piece of Ami Chini Go Chini Tomare, grabs attention. The Bengali and Punjabi stereotypes surprisingly also land.
The performances by the cast deserve heaps of praise. The highlight of the film is Ranveer. Most of the funny one-liners belong to him. He makes you roll with laughter with his impeccable comic timing and shallow Punjabi-ness. It seems like a return to his Bittoo Sharma avatar and it is a sheer delight to see him back to this zone. He impresses you with his moist eyes and broken heart in the intense scenes. He’s truly the beating heart of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Do watch out for him singing Ekla Cholo Re and his jugalbandi with Tota Roy Chowdhury on Dola Re Dola!
Alia Bhatt plays Rani with a lot of grace and charisma. In a scene, she says, ‘Chinta koro na, aami khub mishti.’ But her character loses the sheen in the second half solely because of the writing. In a bid to appear avant-garde and modern, she ends up being reduced to a rant queen. But she deserves credit for lighting up the screen with her presence. She looks drop dead gorgeous in her colourful chiffon sarees and speaks Bengali rather fluently. The promos were misleading and what we learn from the film is that Alia and Ranveer share a crackling chemistry.
Jaya Bachchan as Dhanlakshmi steps into the shoes of Yashvardhan Raichand from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and even utters ‘keh diya na bas keh diya’ in a scene. She’s a stickler to patriarchal norms and is grumpy throughout the film. There are moments when you end up hating her. Funnily, Dhanlakshmi seems like an extension of Jaya herself in all the paparazzi videos we can’t get over.
Shabana as Jamini is stunning. Her scenes with Dharmendra’s Kanwal are pure gold. Truth be told, the veteran duo does steal the thunder from Rocky and Rani and their love story many a times. We only wish Jamini didn’t have all her lines starting with Bengali and then transitioning to Hindi. It’s bizarre because Bengalis don’t speak like that. Churni Ganguly, Tota, Aamir Bashir and Kshitee Jog are all equally impressive. Their tracks are written with a lot of sensitivity and the makers make sure that their talent doesn’t go waste. Your heart goes out to all of them.
All in all, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is a joyful and nostalgic ride. It might not be Karan’s best work but it comes across as a gush of fresh wind. The filmmaker, once again, proves that there’s no one quite like him and when it comes to family sagas, he’s the undisputed king. It’s time to start a petition for the official coinage of ‘the Karan Johar genre of cinema’.
