Finding some nice write-ups/reactions on the movie from Bollywood fans and sharing some of them...
Phew! It's a lot, written out like that! But there is nothing extraneous, really, in the whole film. At least, that's how it felt to me. Karan wanted a message, a very particular message, and he wanted to come at it from all possible angles. And it's not the "unrequited love" message he's been selling. Or at least, not entirely.
It's not about "unrequited love", it's about what love really is, what it means. The idea is that there are many kinds of love, and the "aashiqui" love, the lovers-love, is just one small part of it. Anushka and Ranbir are soulmates, they are each other's whole lives, at the end of the film she tries to tell him that he is her family, her home, the only thing she has in the world. And through out the film, she has told him she loves him, how much he means to her. But it isn't until the very end that Ranbir finally, fully, understands the value of that.
There's been plenty of buzz about how this is just Kuch Kuch Hota Hai redux. And I see that, I do, the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai message was very similar. But the characters were slightly different. Shahrukh and Kajol in Kuch Kuch had this kind of love, this sort of all encompassing, soulmate, closer than breathing kind of love. And Shahrukh and Rani just had the lovers-love, not anything more. Kajol feels her love is unrequited, and leaves, and tries to move on and forget, but never really can. But the big difference is, Kuch Kuch implies that Shahrukh feels the lovers-love for Kajol as well. He feels it more for Rani at that moment, but the possibility is still there for him and Kajol at some point in the future. Rani's character says it explicitly right at the end of the flashback, that she thinks she may have stumbled into the middle of someone else's love story.
The bigger message is the same, that there is lovers-love (like Anushka and Fawad in this movie, or Shahrukh and Rani in KKHH) and then there is the soulmate kind of love which is just much much deeper (like Shahrukh and Kajol in KKHH or Anushka and Ranbir in this). But in Kuch Kuch, it is a little harder to see the message, because eventually Shahrukh and Kajol do become lovers. I mean, Karan puts it right there in the tagline, "Pyar Dosti Hai". But people keep hearing it as "your friend will become your lover" instead of "friendship already is love." So this time, Karan made it as explicit as possible, Anushka says it over and over and over again, until finally at the end, Ranbir gets it, their relationship and her feelings aren't meaningless, just because they aren't what he wants.
It's not just Anushka saying it. Over the course of the film, we see many different kinds of love play out, so we can see the value of what Anushka and Ranbir have together. In the beginning, they are both in loveless relationships. Ranbir is with Lisa Haydon (who is HILARIOUS!!! Oh my gosh, I could have watched a whole movie of her playing the oblivious ditz) who clearly is just with him for his money. And Anushka is with Imran Abbas, another Pakistani actor who I guess the MNS didn't care about enough to protest. He's handsome. And Anushka is only with him because her family has arranged it and she hasn't care enough to end it yet. Starting with these two superficial relationships, it's easy to see how Anushka and Ranbir have a stronger bond just as friends than they do with their mutual significant others.
But then more relationships keep being added on. Fawad shows up, and Anushka turns into a sobbing mess, and leaves with him, abandoning Ranbir. It seems like she loves Fawad more, like he is more important to her. But when she calls Ranbir to come to her wedding, she begs him, because he is her only family, the only person she wants, the only person she can ask from her side. Doesn't that have a value to him? Shouldn't we see that? And at the actual wedding, they have a big confrontation, she is sobbing over his broken heart, but there is nothing she can do. She still marries the man she love-loves, but she has tears in her eyes as she does it because she is worried about her friend. Her love for him, and her broken heart for him, is stronger than her happiness in her romantic love for her husband.
With Aish, Ranbir has all the magical chemistry and sex and good times he could want. And she's a friend too! It's an alternative to his friendship with Anushka, friendship and benefits.
And yet, just texting to Anushka makes him happier than sleeping with Aish. His platonic relationship with Anushka, just talking, is more valuable to him than his friendship-plus relationship with Aish. Again, there is love there, love that comes out without sex, that is just there between them. And it is this kind of love which Aish can't compete with. She breaks up with him not because he is in love with Anushka, she knew that all along, but because her heart is breaking since she knows they will never have together what he has with Anushka. There is something there that she just can't give him, and he can't give her.
And then there's the end of Anushka's marriage. What's the point of that to the narrative? If she's still in love with Fawad and not interested in Ranbir even after the divorce, then why? Well, to prove the point of what Anushka said way back early in her relationship with Ranbir, that friendship can't end like marriage can, that love-love can just go away, but friendship won't. Anushka is still "in love" with Fawad, but she doesn't love him anymore, she can't live with him, she can't stand what he turned her into in her jealousy, and how he kept breaking her heart. She doesn't feel for him what she still feels for Ranbir, because that kind of love isn't transient, it will always be there, unlike romantic love, which can twist and turn poisonous.
And finally, why kill her off in the end? Why make us all depressed and miserable if the main point wasn't death, but friendship? Well, how else would you end this thing? Karan wanted to make it absolutely crystal clear that no matter what happened, Anushka was never ever going to love Ranbir in that way. And there is nothing more final than death! Either her death or Ranbir's that's the only way to show that their relationship would never happen, not even 20 years down the line after the whole movie is over, it's just not going to be a thing. The death also gives a reason for a lot of tearful declarations and big idea arguments and other messy things, but Karan could have come up with some other way to do those too, I don't know, Anushka goes blind or something. The death was really needed, because it had to be final.
Although, notice, we don't end with the death. Just like Geethanjali, we end when they are still alive, with their final decisions as to how they want to play out the end of her life, as partners, just the two of them. It's not about the death, just like Geethanjali wasn't, it's about how you choose to live. And what values you place on the things in your life.
Same person's review on the movie: http://dontcallitbollywood.com/2016/10/30/ae-dil-hai-mushkil-no-spoilers-review/
Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that this is a very very good movie. And a very fresh movie. In every way, from the performances to the dialogue to the filming style. Although the dialogue and film style is what really makes it soar, for me.
The dialogue is really fantastic. There are a ton of film references, for one thing, which I always like, but they don't feel forced or "cute". They feel natural, the way people really talk, throwing in quotes and allusions in the midst of a regular sentence. But it's also clever and detailed and written differently for each character. Ranbir and Anushka have a certain rhythm when they speak, natural and comfortable right off the bat, finishing each other's sentences. Ranbir and Aish never quite connect like that. She takes the lead in all their conversations, directing what he is allowed to say and do. And while she is all cool and poetic in how she talks, it kind of forces him onto his back foot, makes him hesitate to talk, and start and stop sentences, and more often just react to what she said rather than adding anything new. And Fawad is intense, speaks only a few words, but makes them count. And then there's Lisa Haydon's hilarious character, who has her own very specific dialogue, a mixture of English and weak Hindi, and a babble with no real content to it. I haven't heard this kind of confident dialogue since, I don't know, maybe even Dil Chahta Hai? Yeah, it's that good.
The performances are amazing too. Ranbir, sure, he's the centerpiece. But he isn't actually the strongest performance, or the hardest role to play. I am very impressed with him, don't get me wrong, especially the way he transitions through the years. And his willingness to appear young and foolish in the beginning. But Anushka has a much harder part. She doesn't get many big speeches or revealing moments. She has to tell us what is going on in the character's head through little expressions, tiny moments. And she has to make her character complicated and flawed, but still someone we can love just as much as Ranbir does. Fawad does a good job as well, but he just has to be shockingly attractive and bearded, which is well within his abilities.
Aish...is okay. It's a perfect role for her. Way way back when this film was first announced and it was rumored to be a remake of Doosra Aadmi, I said that if it is like the original, and Aish's character is a seemingly sophisticated woman who is above petty emotions, but is actually hiding some deep emotions, it could be great casting. And that's more or less what she is. A character who uses her surface relationships and clever dialogue to protect herself, to hide her feelings. And all of Aish's cosmopolitan manner and practiced performance techniques, all of that, ends up just supporting her character as someone who doesn't like to let people all the way in.
And then there's the filming. I'm guessing Karan changed cameras, like the actual physical object he was using, for this film versus his others. There is so much more motion and quickness to it. Little glimpses of life and moments that flash by before you can grab them. And then other moments that just last and last. There's one close-up of Ranbir I remember that felt like it went on forever, I kept waiting for the cut that never came, because I didn't want to be pulled that much into his pain. It also probably has to do with this cast, especially Ranbir. Ranbir is such an intense actor, so in the moment, so fresh. He shines with these close-ups, and with all the almost improvised character moments that happen earlier.
And yet that fresh camera style is combined with the classic Karan mastery of mise-en-scene. I've mentioned before that I think he in inherited more of his uncle Yash's technique with that, than Yash's own son did. The costumes, the set design, the color palette, they are all on point! For instance, notice how Ranbir's look changes from beginning to end of the film, while Anushka's stays more or less the same. Even to the point of wearing a similar outfit at one point towards the end to exactly what she was wearing in her first scene. Anushka's character knows herself and who she is all along, Ranbir's doesn't. The film is filled with little things like that, stuff you don't consciously notice as an audience member, but which registers on some level and tells you something you wouldn't really know otherwise.
So, yeah, see this movie! Really really well-made film. And with a fresh take on an old story.
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