Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is a definite comment on love. It just doesn’t showcase love as one singular feeling of passion and greatness. Instead it breaks love down into several individual feelings. Some platonic, some sexual and some mature. The very fact that this film successfully portrays love and its various facets with such deftness and control is its true success. In the end, it does falter a bit, the end to Ranbir Kapoor’s and Anushka Sharma’s love story feels like a cop out. But even then, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil does enough to convince you that love can be an exhausting experience, but even in its challenges, it is the one true emotion that can give meaning to life.
The story starts off in the most clichéd fashion. Boy meets girl at a pub. The initial attraction quickly turns to a make out session where the girl Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) finds out that the boy Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) is not your typical hormone driven lad. The clichés are thrown out as the boy cuddles up to her and kisses her like a gold fish. This quirky start to their acquaintance continues right through the film. Alizeh and Ayan turn out to be soul mates but things get complicated when Ayan falls in love but Alizeh refuses to make their relationship a traditional romantic one. The constant sense of conflict in the story is the contrast with which Ayan and Alizeh view their relationship. She struggles to make him understand about her platonic expectations while he can never quite graduate beyond his physical desires. They both love each other, but take a while to figure out how to fit into the other person’s expectation. Alizeh’s old flame Ali (Fawad Khan) and Ayan’s new obsession Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) complicate the love story further.
In terms of the concept and writing Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is Karan Johar’s most evolved and mature film yet. The very fact that he doesn’t choose to portray love as the greatest virtue on Earth works for the story. Even though his film has the right ideas and some wonderfully interesting themes, his plot choices aren’t always the best. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil starts off with a heavy dose of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai but the end it adopts a The Fault In Our Stars approach. This digression in story telling doesn’t work. It’s not a bad conclusion, but it’s also not the best choice.
Even with its doddering narrative, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’s emotions are consistent and bang on. Watching this film and its characters coming to terms with love, heartbreak and the ambition of relationships is fascinating. The characters are as complex as real individuals. Sometimes they are a bundle of contradiction and at other times they are joyous creatures to behold. Ranbir Kapoor is the soul of this film. His mere presence brings a therav to Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. His eyes convey myriad feelings of heartbreak, innocence and passion with consummate ease. His performance once again, lays the benchmark for quality acting in Hindi cinema. Anushka Sharma’s performance matches Ranbir in every aspect. She is the perfect compliment to Ranbir’s charisma. Her verve and emotional intensity draws you in and Ranbir’s charm hooks you on. In a smaller but significant role, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan floors you with her flawless beauty and command on language. Her character looks ethereal and you can’t pick between her face or her pristine Urdu. Fawad Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have limited roles that just add to the curiosity of the film.
Pritam’s music is a definite value add to Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. So are the dialogues by Niranjan Iyenger and Karan Johar. Some of the lines like ‘Aapke aansoon bade wafadar Hai…’ and ‘Pyaar mein junoon… Dosti mein sukoon…’ are just sublime. The background score though is a bit of a hit and miss. Sometimes it just becomes too over bearing.
Despite its hits and misses, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is an experience worth having. Karan Johar peppers this love story with countless movie references, some his own, some of his mentors at Yash Raj and others of his idols from Hindi cinema. His homage driven treatment adds the right kind of spunk to the film. Barring the minor hiccups in the narrative, this film is easily one of the best efforts of his career. It’s a film that makes you cry, makes you laugh and makes you fall in love.
