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U Me Aur Hum

Movie U Me Aur Hum Director Ajay Devgan Producer Ajay Devgan Music Vishal Bharadwaj Cast Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Karan Khanna, Isha Sharwani, Sumeet Raghavan, Divya Dutta

Sonia Chopra

As the title suggests, the film is high on mush. Unfortunately, the rest is all pretty much slush. Take a look at some of the dialogues: when harassed stewardess Pia (Kajol) wants to quit the cruise liner, wannabe Romeo Ajay says �aborting the cruise now is like aborting a child in the seventh month�. Hah. Here�s another one: a hollering wife says, �Indian men are like mice�always looking for a hole!� I am still hoping I heard that wrong. There are other dialogues equally precious, but the mind can take only so much. Are these conversations really written by Ashwani Dheer (of Office Office fame)? More: a fat kid makes a cameo in the film and each time he comes on screen, you hear an elephant trumpeting in the background. Sitting two seats away from me at the theatre, I couldn�t meet eyes with this young boy who was put down so often onscreen, only to elicit a few laughs. Now for the story: we meet Ajay (Ajay Devgan), a psychiatrist who falls in love with the stewardess Pia (Kajol) on the cruise ship he�s holidaying on. Completely unbecoming of a doctor, Ajay pursues her in a tapori, filmi style that borders on misbehaviour. He goes a step further and steals her book that has a list of her favourite things and begins chasing her armed with this knowledge. She likes liqueur chocolates, dogs, the salsa, and wishes that someone would propose to her atop the Eiffel Tower. In a predictable script clich�, Ajay is shown as having a dislike towards all of these things, but gets himself around to learn the salsa and even lies to Pia that he�s a gold medallist dancer. Ajay has two couple friends�an �unhappily married� couple Vicky (Sumeet Raghavan, very watchable performance) and Natasha (Divya Dutta, dependably good) and a �happily unmarried� twosome Karan Khanna, Isha Sharvani (both completely uncharismatic and lacking any screen presence)�who do little more than dance, drink, swim or giggle. I have to mention this�Khanna, in an unshaven avatar, is perplexingly wearing a dollar-shaped ring so huge it�s distracting. Sharvani, who is doomed to doing only roles relating to dancing�even if there is hardly any dancing required of the character�has nothing much to do here. You�d be temped to believe the film was financed by a liquor company the way all the characters guzzle drinks one after the other like you and I gulp down daily cuppas of chai. Meanwhile, Pia is naturally falling for Ajay, admiring that they have so many things in common. Ajay continues to lead her on and is pleased that he�s succeeding in �pataoing� her (what an unethical psychiatrist, this fraternity ought to sulk). The film then cuts into a song where blonde, leggy women are draped around poles or placed strategically like decorative props in every frame of the song. The loser doc finally confesses to Pia about his lying-shying and despite being upset, Pia eventually comes back to him and they get married. Everything�s swell until she begins to show symptoms of mental instability even as they discover that she�s pregnant. The film veers into the thriller-mode as Pia�s degenerating condition even causes her to almost drown her baby, although unintentionally. But there�s something off about this film. Apart from the million senseless dialogues, its sensibilities are not in place. What�s the deal with Ajay always wishing for a baby boy when Pia�s pregnant? And his pleased-as-punch face when the nurse announces it�s indeed a baby boy and he proudly says `Mujhe Pia par poora bharosa tha.� Huh? Is this film for real? Boyoboy, your brains sure are fried with this shockingly objectionable scene. You wonder how real life parents of a girl child had the heart to come up with this scene. Or perhaps they believe that there is no place for heart in this business. The technical aspect of the film is average. The camerawork is interesting in places, but is bizarre in its penchant for unbearable extreme close-ups, till you can actually count the actors� teeth (not that you want to). The picture would have been elevated with sync sound, but here it�s boring dubbed sound; though one must mention that being seasoned artists Kajol, Ajay, Divya and Sumeet don�t let you miss real sound that much. Music is so-so; Vishal Bharadwaj is capable of so much more. The sweeping cruise liner shots are all good�the computer-generated perfect waves in the artificially colour-corrected waters are nice. And nicer is Kajol�s never-ending, radiant smile that reaches her irrepressibly bright eyes. She�s fantastic in the emotional scenes, the ones where she resists being institutionalised, and the pondering self-questioning ones. Ajay is ok�perhaps it�s not his fault, but his character is sketchy and not particularly likeable. But one scene that does stand out is his cynical monologue in the second half, when he�s sitting around with friends wondering if the idea of �u, me aur hum� is a fallacy and whether everyone ultimately lives only for themselves. Some romantic moments in the film do get you emotional like the conversations shared by the two on the cruise, Ajay�s unswerving loyalty to his wife and the genuine love he feels for her. Of course, a huge positive for the film is the chemistry between Ajay and Kajol�that�s still real and still crackling. It�s a treat to watch the two together; you just wish it were in a better film. Director Ajay Devgan makes a confident debut, but hopefully next time round, he�ll choose to appease the audience�s mind as well, and not just aim for the heart.