Subhash K. Jha speaks about Break Ke Baad
By Subhash K. Jha, November 27, 2010 - 13:22 IST
Commitment-phobia is so epidemic in today's average love relationship it beats the HIV virus as the no.1 killer of our times. Like all those lovely movies earlier about Nazi atrocities and cancer we now have interesting cinematic takes on the fear of...gulp choke...commitment among today's couples.
In first-time director Danish Aslam's Break Ke Baad, Aliya (Deepika Padukone) wants so much space, space, space...instead of a wannabe actress, she could be an astronaut! Sometimes, when you crave for too much space, your life gets spaced out. That's where the voice of reason and sanity comes in.
Imran Khan as Abhay, Aliya's sensible childhood chum, movie-going companion and wannabe husband and shit-shoveler is such a steadying factor in the high-on-life girl, you would wish him in every denuded potentially self-destructive girl's life. Imran is cleverly and perfectly cast. His real-life image of the committed one-woman man immediately gives a cool and complete credence to his part.
Deepika, one isn't too sure of, to begin with. The space she occupies here seems thrust on her. This is clearly Priyanka Chopra's territory. But hold on. Before we accuse Deepika of being miscast (can actors be accused of wrong casting? Hmmmmm...) the spirited girl begins to grow into her character. Soon, Deepika is one with her part of the high-flying utterly-selfish and brutally unthinking dreamer who wants it all and wants it fast.
As a pair, Imran and Deepika work like a dream. They both seem to understand their individual character's needs and their need to fit into one another's life. Of course, it takes the stubborn and self-defeating Aliya the whole film to realize rejecting love to pursue your dreams is akin to losing the very essence of your dreams.
The film undertakes a lovely and illustrative journey of self-realization. Deepika pulls off the role with a gradual acceptance of her own blind spots and embracing the world of love and companionship. Some sequences between Imran and Deepika reveal an out-of-the-ordinary empathy with the dynamics of urban relationship. However, the writing elsewhere gets uneven and sluggish, considerably diminishing the impact of the plot's core relationship.
That voyage from self-love to other-love is undertaken in Break Ke Baad in a spirit of buoyant joy. But the lines, between Imran and Deepika are not always as smart as their chemistry suggests. Often you tragically lose interest in the progress of their relationship, no thanks to the sketchy writing and cardboard-like incidental characters like Shahana Goswami and Yuvi in 'Australia' who are so much into accessorizing their feelings you wonder if they are auditioning for the sequel to Aisha.
But, you've seldom seen a well-matched couple than Deepika and Imran. His rapport with her is far superior and credible than what Imran shared with Sonam Kapoor in I Hate Luv Storys.
Break Ke Baad is a flawed film about a flawed half in a lopsided relationship. The plot moves from Delhi to 'Australia' (actually Mauritius) in search of a pure healthy air to breathe. The azure sea exudes an innocence echoing the lack of artifice in the Abhay-Aliya alliance.
Break Ke Baad finally emerges as one of those love stories with a potential that gets squandered in an attempt to be constantly clever at the cost of sustaining the sensitivity that the two lead players build into their relationship. It could have been much better. But Break Ke Baad is not half as baaaaad or shallow as some recent 'luv storys'. Imran and Deepika get it right. And not just the spelling.
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Break Ke Baad - Lovers Aaj Kal
SUDHISH KAMATH"What happens when you jump from here," a thrice-divorced single aunt asks Abhay (Imraan Khan) about the consequence of taking a leap from the top floor of a multi-storeyed building.
Eh? Possible death, multiple fractures, brain haemorrhage, the boy answers wondering what she's trying to get at. Lilette Dubey playing the aunt gives us the priceless wisdom that defines Break Ke Baad: "That's the thing. I didn't think and I took the leap three times (METAPHOR ALERT: She was married thrice) and I did get hurt. But how can you want love and not expect pain?"
So there you have it, little ones. Falling in love is like jumping off the top floor of a building. It might amount to umm… death.
This is just one of the many contrivances of writing in this lazily scripted romantic comedy whose only upside is that it has a couple of interesting characters for leads by sheer subversion of roles, though not entirely original. The boy is the girl in the relationship and the girl is the boy. "Main Shah Rukh Khan hoon… the star in every scene of my life," the girl says when she's drunk and asks the boy what his name is. "Sunita," he says.
True to this character delineation, the girl is the impulsive, larger-than-life, commitment-phobic, anti-establishment rebel, while the boy is the madly in love, clingy, nag who looks pretty in pink and loves to cook.
The writers, overdosing on romantic comedies, sweetly decide to adopt some of the most popular lines ever written for the screen into their script. "You complete me," says the Jerry Maguire-inspired chick while he, like Harry, tells his Sally, that well, "Men and women can't be friends".
But there's Imraan's immensely likeable presence that makes up for all this and Deepika is pretty enough to keep us hooked… but only till they decide to take a break and it's all the way downhill from there. Do watch out for a couple of brilliant, touching moments, probably the only ones with soul in the film when the two have their "breaking up" conversations.
How do you react to a film when the writers thrust the most implausible of situations in your face?
One scene, girl is partying by the beach, on the phone with her boyfriend in India, getting drunk in Australia, with boys in the background screaming: "Let's get naked" and the next morning, girl wakes up next to half-naked boy in her bed. She starts beating him up and is joined by the boyfriend who has probably taken the next flight there. And when she accuses him of being clingy and insecure, how does he react? He decides to move in with her there! And, the writers conveniently make all the support characters take the side of this totally psycho guy they've never met and offer him accommodation.
Now, this is a flamboyant role that someone like Kareena would've shone in. Deepika, despite her lovely underplaying in Love Aaj Kal, just does not seem cut out for this 'My life is a movie' drama-queen part. So when she's getting all teary-eyed during the break-up, you are only marvelling at the hotness of the girl in a bikini. If it was a happily-married Rishi Kapoor offering old-world perspective in the Imtiaaz Ali film, it's left to divorced women, Sharmila Tagore and Lilette Dubey, to give their gyaan here.
The rest of it is very predictable once you've seen Love Aaj Kal or I Hate Luv Storys. Towards the end, I turned to a friend and ask: 'Wait, why did they make this film? How is it any different from Love Aaj Kal?'
And a song that goes 'Dooriyaan' brings up the end credits. In Love Aaj Kal, it was 'Yeh Dooriyaan' that brought up the opening credits. Very different. Sorry.
P.S: I liked Love Aaj Kal, among the few who did.
Break Ke Baad
Genre: Romance
Director: Danish Aslam
Cast: Imraan Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sharmila Tagore, Yudi, Shahana Goswami, Lilette Dubey
Storyline: A young couple takes a break from their relationship when the girl has to go abroad to study and then, the film goes psycho on us and makes the boy a clingy, obsessive, stalking nag.
Bottomline: A younger, immature version of Love Aaj Kal with shoddy writing and cinematic liberties of annoying proportions
Keywords: Hindi cinema, film review
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