Review: Lekar Hum Deewana Dil

It’s the same old boy-meets-girl story but with a twist. But wait! We all have watched films where the boy and girl don’t know about their true feelings until a series of misadventures verifies what we have known all along — the couple that we see squabbling on screen is made for each other.

Sigh! Remember Imran Khan and Genelia D’Souza in Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na? The newcomers in debutant director Arif Ali’s film go the whole hog pouncing on one another by showering abuses and physical blows in the middle of Chattisgarh jungles with Maoists for company.

Now where did the Maoists come into the picture? There is even a catchy A.R. Rahman item song in the jungle where our debutant hero (never short of attention-grabbing gimmicks) shakes a leg with his heroine singing about Maoists.

Really, now. Do we really need to dumb down serious political issues in order to make a valid point about youngsters who don’t think twice before breaking a lifelong commitment and who seem to believe life is one nonstop rave party?

Ali’s take on young love sets itself apart from the norm by showing the couple as being truly annoying in their self absorption. The two debutant actors play the roles of best buddies-turned-squabbling lovers with great relish. While Deeksha Seth, who plays a Shetty from Karnataka with a brood of cackling complaining women and men swarming her household, is photogenic and endearing, Armaan Jain is quite the chip off the old Kapoor block. When he emotes, he resembles his uncle Rajiv Kapoor and when he dances, he draws fond recollections of Shammi Kapoor. With his unnaturally red lips and bushy eyebrows, he takes a bit of a time to come close to the audience.

But we eventually settle down to watching his character make a fool of himself, falling in and out of love as if matters of the heart were video games.

There is much in the narrative that’s repetitive, trite and done to death. But there is also a core of inner conviction to the storytelling. The characters are familiar yet interesting.

The director never sides with the misguided young couple. Instead, the plot makes sure to burst their bubble and watch them squirm in mutual embarrassment as they go from being buddies to badass adversaries.

There’s quite a lot that Ali seems to have inherited from his brother Imtiaz Ali’s style of filmmaking, especially the penchant to take a “Bharat Darshan” while telling a story.

Lekar Hum Deewana Dil doesn’t hesitate in letting the young protagonists make a fool of themselves as they mock all good sense with their chaotic behaviour. It’s a world which seems strangely at war with Hindi cinema conventions even as the narrative embraces the oldest formula of letting two friends discover a mutual meeting ground in the middle of a fierce war of their ego.

Since its protagonists are largely loathsome in their self-serving attitude, this is not an easy film to like. But ultimately, it is a breezy slice-of-life experience with dialogues and scenes that ring true most of the time. The film marks the confident debut of its lead pair and director.

Box:

Lekar Hum Deewana Dil is showing in the UAE