Movie Review - Ok Jaanu by Suhel Johar

Ok Jaanu Is An Unpalatable Fare.

 

Shaad Ali’s  OK Jaanu, an official remake of Mani Rathnam’s Tamil film O Kadhal Kanmani, is an unpalatable fare.

It may be recalled that Shaad Ali had made his mark by remaking another Mani Rathnam’s Tamil film, Alai Payuthey. In an attempt to resurrect his Bollywood film career Ali chose to remake another Mani Rathnam Tamil film, O Kaadhal Kanmani.

Unfortunately Ok Jaanu is a dish that is not only bland but inedible and indigestible too. The recipe for the film goes something like this. The chief ingredients of the recipe are Adi (Aditya Roy Kapoor) and Tara (Shraddha Kapoor) , a young live-in couple in Mumbai. On the face they do seem interesting and promising but and it is only after you taste the fare you realise how unpalatable it is. They just don’t attract your taste buds and fail to offer you a convincing dish. The film which is created or rather recreated by Shaad Ali fails to keep you engrossed. It is co produced by Mani Rathnam and Karan Johar and I hope it is not a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

The tadka or seasoning comes in the form of the much more likeable Gopi Shrivastava (Naseeruddin Shah) and his wife Charu (Leela Samson), who play the older, married couple. (Incidentally, she had the same role in the original Tamil version). This couple has been married for 50 years and their enduring love has defied time and misfortune that has befallen the couple. Leela suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and often gets lost amongst the crowd to add some drama to the proceedings.

In contrast Adi and Tara believe that ‘shaadi is for fools.’ They just want to live for today and enjoy each other’s company before pursuing their careers abroad, separately. And yes it is love that gets in the way and adds to their confused love story.  At any point of the film you’re unable to realise that this is a couple that believes in just living together with no strings attached and to them a matrimonial knot is a foolish thing. As the film progresses you realise that all their talks about ‘shaadi is for fools.’ Not only seems baseless but so self contradictory too. As Adi and Tara they lack that charm and you fail to have an emotional connect with them.

Kitu Gidwani makes a comeback playing Tara’s mother but has an insipid role and has hardly anything worthwhile to do.

Agreed that rom-coms  are not much about a story but rely on situations and presentation. But this one fails to get you feel connected with whatever is happening on the screen. The local train scenes are so unintentionally funny and so is the first actual meeting between the lead pair that happens in a church. The film is full of repetition and the film ends on a very predictable note.

Gulzar’s dialogue for the young couple don’t help their cause either. He does though seem to be in his elements when writing the lines for Naseer and Leela. But overall Gulzar’s dialogue seem uninspired and pretty ordinary.

A.R. Rahman’s successful original for the Tamil film has been retained but somehow more than the songs, barring the title track and the reprised version of Humma Humma, it is the background score that proves more effective in the film.

Director Shaad Ali and DOP Ravi K Chandran plot and design to present the magic of Mumbai’s buses, trains and crowds but they all seem unrealistic and badly orchestrated. The house these characters live in seems more like some hotel room than something known as Home or a House.