Ye Jawani Hai Deewani: My Review
CAST: Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, kalki Koechlin, Aditya Kapoor
DIRECTOR: Ayan Mukherjee
If you just cut small pieces from your favourite clothing and then stitch it together into a new dress, it might not end up becoming another favourite of yours. Even though, those pieces still are your favourite, the “new dress” won’t give you that amount of comfort. Well, Ye jawaani hai deewani just ends up becoming that “New cloth”. You can see a very strong effect of movies like Rock on, Zindagi milegi na dobara, and Ayan’s own Wake up sid! and all of this with added philosophy and an extra oomph factor.
It is not like you won’t like this movie, it is not bad at all, but there will be a sense of having already seen-it-all. When something on similar lines have already been made into cult status, another one coming your way has to be of that level and this is where this falls a little short.
But judging this purely on this new outing of Ranbir and deepika, it is indeed entertaining, thoughtful and charming.
The story is of Naina (Deepika) and Karan, who prefers to be called Bunny (Ranbir), with contrasting personalities. Naina, the scholar who is studying medicine has been a bookworm, taciturn, having no friends all her life. A life based on parent’s wishes and pressures, is what she had lived this far.
While Bunny is a flamboyant, charming guy who has dreams to fly around the world and explore each of it, bit by bit. How he defines his wish is, that he wants his life to have raftaar (Speed). He loves flirting and has this saying that, “flirting is very good for health, like yoga”.
Naina and Bunny have studied in the same class long before, along with Aditi(Kalki Koechlin) and Avi (Aditya roy kapoor). Although Aditi, Avi and Bunny are the best of friends, Naina had no connection with all these, until one day Naina meets Aditi and how her, not-caring-too-much-about-life attitude and her plans for a Trekking trip to Manali makes her look deep into his own life. Also, Aditi is in love with Avi, but he is always in search of “greener pastures”.
Fed-up with the whole ONLY-STUDY schedule, she decides to have a break. A morning letter at the dining table for her mom and a last-minute arranged trip to manali, tags her with Bunny and friends.
A crazy ride, where Naina discovers herself, rather reinvents herself, ends up falling for the charming bunny, but ends up not disclosing her feelings to him. Reason being, Bunny has a totally different plan for life. Love, marriage and family are things he wants to be away from, and then there is his dream of Globe-trotting.
8 years down the line, at Aditi’s marriage they again meet and the romance mushrooms again. At the same time, Aditi, has found herself a rich-engineer(played by siddharth kappor of Delhi belly fame) to get married to, while Avi, with his drinking and gambling habits (Carrying forward from where he left in Ashiqui2) has lost it all and is now bankrupt. But more than that, what he misses is their friendship that got ruined because of Bunny’s career plans, where he just couldn’t find time for anything.
How, Why and when it all falls back into place is what the movie is all about.
The movie brings along the innocence in its characters and tries to pack in little life lessons in them. Ranbir kapoor is definitely a star that leaves no stone unturned to make the movie his own; emotions come flowing down from him. Be it, those scenes with Deepika or with his friends, or even his dad (Played by the Farooq Sheikh). One particular scene where Farooq waits for his son, who usually comes late at night, and has already made plans for Manali without telling him, is where the father-son relationship has been shot beautifully. It does not exaggerate anything, neither the dad’s care, nor his son’s, just sweetly says it all.
Deepika is all guns blazing here as well. She not only looks her geeky best in the first half, but uses her sexy sarees to make you go Wow!! She can just cry and smile at the same time, and still look good. And man, she does act unlike many others.
Kalki koechlin is again has amazing bubbly character in the movie, credit for her to be choosing roles that suites her. While, Aditya is very mediocre as Bunny’s friend, emoting is what this young lad still needs to learn.
There is a blink-and-a-miss scene of Rana duggubati in the movie and you wonder why he needed to be there??
Songs are really good and have been timed perfectly. They do bring in an added energy to the plot. The foreign location shots are amazing too, making you want to just go and explore (Another ZNMD reminder).
Overall, the movie isn’t at all bad, it is actually good. The only point of contention being that it will remind too much of Zindagi Na Milegi dobara, with an extra oomph factor with it. But other than that, I would recommend a watch.
I’m going with 3/5 for Ayan Mukherji’s Ye Jawani Hai deewani, its good if you don’t start comparing with other movies of same genre.
[You can also read the reviews of Deepika’s other hits: Raamleela, Piku, Finding Fanny]