Movie Review - Jab Harry Met Sejal by Suhel Johar

Imtiaz Ali Takes Audience For A Big Boring Ride



Shah Rukh Khan’s collaboration with Imtiaz Ali has finally hit the screens after an unnecessary row with the CBFC. The film did benefit with all the extra publicity it got due to the controversy. And you wish that the film was never released. Jab Harry Met Sejal proves that Imtiaz is an overrated director who is either still nursing a hangover of Jab We Met or he feels that it is the best formula for a love story. Post JWM he has just been dishing out the same fare by tweaking the scenario a little bit here. So in essence JHMS is no different from Cocktail, Tamasha and Jab We Met?

Jab Harry Met Sejal features Shah Rukh Khan as Harinder Singh Nehra or Harry, who is a tourist guide while Anushka Sharma plays the role of Sejal, who is a Gujarati girl in the film. The story revolves around Harry and Sejal’s journey across Europe. while her entire family takes off to India. She has apparently told her parents that she will get back to the country only when she finds her lost engagement ring. A search for Sejal’s engagement ring makes Harry understand love and relationships better. What happens to their inner conflicts and outer conflicts as a result of their journey together is Jab Harry Met Sejal all about. This journey of a 'tour guide who is lost' and a Gujarati girl in 'need of guidance' is nothing less than a traumatic experience for you.

Not just because the film is stupid, unamusing and regressive, but also because it is so clueless and tone deaf, completely bereft of any shred of self-awareness, using humour as a crutch to sell its problematic notions of identity and acceptance – arrogant even, erroneously believing that the audience would lap anything up in the garb of a love story helmed by a fading superstar, Shah Rukh Khan, who, appears he is on dope or is a robot going through his motions.

The plot is wafer-thin and it’s been done to death by none other than Imtiaz Ali. It’s the routine girl is engaged elsewhere story but she discovers half-way through that her soulmate is someone other. In this case, Sejal is engaged to Rupen but actually ends up falling for Harry. It was all so fresh, sweet and simple back then; tired and worn out now. So can Imtiaz Ali now tell us some other love story?

Anushka flaunts some practiced Gujarati accent, dated innocence and scatter brained gets more irritating than loveable. SRK too is on an uneven track - swinging between the subdued and the over the top. His constant muttering in indecipherable Punjabi under the breath annoys, rather than making him cool and cute.

Jab Harry Met Sejal is predictable to the T like most Bollywood movies are. Yet, some manage to entertain. Not this one. Most of the songs just pop up in the film, without any context, mood or setting. The movie gets boring after the first fifteen minutes would be an understatement because as it starts unfolding it becomes a yawn fest, for the viewers who are looking for progress in terms of the story. Despite the beautiful locations of Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Amsterdam etc. in the film you are lost wondering where the movie is heading.

Shah Rukh does nothing in the film that he hasn't already done earlier. Anushka Sharma does nothing in this film that she hasn't already done earlier barring the Gujarati accent. Imtiaz Ali does something that he hasn't already done earlier.

There is nothing in Jab Harry Met Sejal that can keep your eyelids from wanting to stay shut after the first 15 minutes of the film. Despite the beautiful locations of Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Amsterdam etc. in the film you are lost wondering where the movie is heading. JHMS marks a thumping return to love at its most predictable, worn-out and frustrating. There is not much in the silly situations and trite conversations to get you interested in the lovers. The two main characters themselves don’t seem to share that vital thing on screen chemistry. The much older Harry is dealing with the demons of his past. But the film fails to take us deeper into them.

It’s time he gets out of the formulaic mould and tries something different. It’s time for him to reinvent himself as a filmmaker and prove that he is not an overrated director. In this film he fails on all fronts, both as a director and a writer. Forget the script even the title has no significance since it’s all about a lost ring so ideally the film should have been titled Jab Sejal Loses Ring.

Cinematography by K.U. Mohanan is good while editing by Aarti Bajaj could have been crisper. Music by Pritam and Diplo is listless. Background music by Hitesh Sonik is average.  

Performancewise, Shah Rukh Khan looks haggard and indifferent. He seems as bored as the audience is if not more and seems in a hurry to get it done with. Anushka Sharma is lovely and does a decent job in an ill defined role. Aru Krishansh Verma, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Evelyn Sharma, Paras Arora and Sayani Gupta are in inconsequential supporting roles.

On the whole, Jab Harry Met Sejal can only be tolerated by diehard fans of Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma.