Movie Review: Raanjhnaa

Director Anand L. Rai

Year 2013

Language Hindi

Verdict Good

“Spoiler Alert”

Few days back I watched Raanjhanna played by Dhanush and Sonam Kapoor. I enjoyed the movie.

It portrays a one sided love story between Kundan and Zoya, two people from totally different backgrounds.

I have seen this kind of love in real life too, so I did not feel bad for Kundan. Their love could have never fulfilled, due to the fact that only people from the same class can continue a successful love story. Now let me finish before you start getting angry. By “same-class” I did not mean riches, religion, caste or looks. What I meant was that two people from totally different background can make it through if they are compatible in the intellectual level. A highly educated girl (here from JNU) can never fall in love with an under-educated boy (AKA bumpkin ;) ). Even if they start a relationship, it will not continue for long and will end in a very bitter breakup, usually the ego takes over whatever love was there in the first place.

Anyway this kind of one sided love story we have seen a lot of time and blamed the girl for finally marrying some doctor or engineer and here a future-politician, who could have changed Indian politics. … So the first half of the movie was altogether very relatable and realistic and also very very enjoyable.

Now comes the second half, which is in my opinion is a bit far fetched, but on the second thought there could not have been a better ending. You see there can be three conclusions to this story. One, the boy stops loving altogether. That is a very sad ending. Stop believing in love could have been the worst possible conclusion of this story.
And there is the second possibility, the boy keeps on loving her and she gets married to love of her life and leave, this is a boring (read most common) kind of ending and not good for movies. Now the third ending, the boy dies at the end, doing some very commendable act, like saving the girl’s fiance. But this is a cliche, depicted in many many Bollywood predecessors. So in this movie Kundan became a political leader taking the place of the ‘other guy’ (who has died because of Kundan) and finally dies to fulfill “her” wish.

At the end my verdict, a very interesting watch with a lovely flow (you can not fast forward even the songs). I enjoyed it a lot and finally became a fan of Dhanush. Although he did not have many dialogues to deliver but his presence made the movie believable and enjoyable.

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