Ae Dil Hai Mushkil – Review

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil directed by Karan Johar.

So, when I first saw the trailer, it featured two of my favorite ladies – Aishwarya Rai (Bachchan) and Anushka Sharma. From just the trailers scenes, music, and the cast, I had really high hopes for the film, boy they were let down fast.

The film starts off with Ranbir Kapoor, who plays a singer, doing an interview. While doing the interview, we go into flashbacks, with some narrative about Love and Friendship, and this is where all the characters are introduced. We get a glimpse of each of the main characters. The leading man (Ranbir), who has a gentle, soft, emotional, breakable, heart; and the leading lady (Anushka), who tells it like it is, and seems tough as nails. We get a look at their friendship and one sided long “love” story. We get to meet some characters that really don’t need to be there, but think they play a pivotal role. It is thru these extra characters that we get to see the mindset of our main leads.  After a bit of – “she loves me, she loves me not” and some heartbreak, we find out that she really “loves me” but not really.

Karan Johar did a decent job of directing the film. He held his approach of giving up the right amount of laughter and sadness without over doing it. Did the film drag at times, yes. But it also, felt like it moved too fast other times. Sometimes it felt like months had gone by between scene, and other times you could not tell if it was the next day. As always, there are his buddy friends cameos, that probably could get overlooked (Alia Bhatt) or dont neccesarrily need to be there (ahh hmm SRK).

The highlight of the film, I must say is Ranbir. The dude carried the film rightfully. For that, I have to give the casting and Karan a big thumbs up (love that drink). It’s like it was written for him. Maybe Hrithik, Ranveer Singh or Varun Dhawan could have played the role, but overall the playful innocence of Ranbir, fit this bill.  Anushka as well does a fantastic job, playful, tough, loveable and yet obnoxious. There are a few cameos in the movie liek I mentioned, like Aishwariya and Shah Rukh Khan. Anushka was able to handle the scenes well with the veteran actress. Ash felt a bit like her old self again, she needs to be given more chances to be back in the films. For me it was great seeing these two lovely ladies together in a scene. It was not as exciting as I hoped, but hopefully, there will be others. Shah Rukh to me, was a waste in the film. Personally, I am getting tired of the older actors playing young. We are to believe that Shah Rukh and Ash were married at one point in the film and then got divorced, and now she is with Ranbir, who is her and Shah Rukhs same age – WTF??  With the scenes of Shah Rukh and Ranbir together, Ranbir stole the show. His acting was on par with the vet actor. Kudos to Ranbir, you were the film.

The songs were delightful and grow on you. They had a hint of old school meets new gen. There were times where it felt like a song was a remix, but its was original. There are a few songs that are what you would expect from an indie band, which suited the scenes. Then there were some upbeat tunes and some classic nostalgic ones.

Is this movie a must watch? – ehh, not really. If you are home and in the mood for some background Bollywood, then go for it.

Will people have their own opinions on the film – I sure as hell hope so! Let me know about your favorite and not so fav scenes are.

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