Set in three different time periods, Kunal Kohli’s story fails to stand the test of time. Long, laboured and pointless, Kohli fails to place his gorgeous actors in a credible story. One fails to understand why Shahid Kapur and Priyanka Chopra opted for a film which has nothing new to offer them. Shahid has just endured Mausam where he had two distinct looks and having played 12 characters in What’s Your Rashee , Priyanka Chopra should have known by now how much she can delineate when she plays multiple characters. Here again, she seems to believe that changing outfits will give her the feel of the character, the body language and the expressions. To be fair to her, Kohli has given her very little to play with. Similarly, Shahid uses his staple expressions to charm through this flimsy script. The actors look great together and have some chemistry going from the word go, but it fails to salvage a repetitive plot of two lovers who meet in different births but their romance is repeatedly thwarted.
Counting small mercies, the opening act, the romance of the 60s appeals as guitarist Govind (Shahid) meets actress Rukhsar (Priyanka) on a moving train. The conversation is innocent and engaging even as you can easily make out the ambience is a result of Chroma, the setting is easy on the eyes. The way she makes him wait and the way he doesn’t give her weight makes it an enjoyable portion. Priyanka looks fetching in Mumtaz-style sari and Prachi Desai as the third angle in the story adds to the charm. But instead of exploring the possible twists in the story, Kohli cuts to contemporary world where Kishan (Shahid) is caught between Meera (Neha Sharma) and Radha (Priyanka). He opts for Radha and after a night in Stanford, they keep in touch over Facebook and share pictures of mundane activities over mobile but Meera refuses to go away. Kohli tries to capture the fleeting nature of today’s love but in an attempt to present the cool side ends up caricaturing it.
The biggest joke is the third part, which is set in 1910 in Lahore. Using the freedom movement as the backdrop, here he presents Shahid as a cocky Javed who believed that he has a way with verse and girls till he meets Aradhna (Priyanka), the daughter of a freedom fighter. Marked with pedestrian poetry and hackneyed situations, the portion makes fun of the freedom struggle and lacks the required soul to bind the film into an organic whole. Priyanka gets the Punjabi accent right but there is very little to differentiate between the body language of Radha and Aradhna. Similarly, Shahid’s arrogance looks out of place and we keep wondering a full film on the Chaplinisque Govind would have done the trick. Try it on TV, it might work as a timepas.
