Film: Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
Cast: Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor
Director: Ayan Mukerji

Plot: Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani features two polar opposite characters, who at one point were classmates at Modern School. The first is Naina Talwar (Deepika Padukone), a studious bespectacled young girl. The second is Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor), a carefree young travel show host intent on breaking out of the pattern of getting an education, a career, a wife, children, retirement, and eventually death. With a desire to be free and live a life of wildness, Bunny embarks on a journey with his two best friends, Aditi (Kalki Koechlin), a tomboyish girl, and Avi (Aditya Roy Kapur), a comedic boy with a penchant for satire. Bunny meets Naina and invites her to spend time with him and his friends in Kashmir and. Eventually their journey will lead them to the ultimate destination, "Love". As the two mature from the age of 21 to their 30's, they recognize their priorities, realize their true desires and celebrate madness, warmth, marriage, wildness, freedom, togetherness, reunions, friendship, breakups, family, and love.



Review: It is that moment when I’ve been over-exposed to awesomeness by the superb work exhibited by Ayan Mukherji yet again in Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, almost 4 years after his debut film, Wake Up Sid released. There are absolutely no complications involved, just a simple love story that go through various phases simultaneously showing the challenges that the film’s protagonists face before finally ending up together. You may consider this a spoiler, trust me it isn’t. Just when you think ‘all’s well that ends well’, there’s something new that is brought about.
It may have been a herculean task to bring a former real-life couple, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone to share screen space especially when everyone’s aware of the rife rumor mills and the usual talk of the town. However, the two came back to work together after Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008) purely in the name of friendship that they share with the film’s director. What you wouldn’t have expected however, was the professionalism with which the performances have been handled. Off the new-age couples, Ranbir-Deepika sure make a great onscreen pair, and from a totally unbiased perspective I state that the two should be cast together in more films, playing varied roles like Shahrukh Khan and Kajol, perhaps.
Verdict: Restores your faith in love over and over again. ‘Tis the magic of Wake Up Sid, on a large scale

Rating: 3.5/5

Film: Iron Man 3
Cast: Robert Downey Jr. Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle.
Director: Shane Black.

Film: Ek Thi Daayan
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Kalki Koechlin, Huma Qureshi, Konkona Sen
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Plot: Bobo is India's top magician, a star. But unknown to even his beautiful girlfriend Tamara, his life is falling apart. Hallucinations about his dead kid sister Misha are casting a dark shadow on his life, threatening his very sanity. He is left with no option but to seek psychiatric help in the form of the rather odd Dr. Palit who puts him under regression hypnosis to go back to the distant past. When Bobo was 11 and Misha 6.

A terrifying childhood story surfaces in which a dark supernatural power, in the form of a daayan destroys Bobo's family, his father and baby sister, leaving him orphaned and alone. Worse, the daayan promises to return to haunt him forever.

Dr. Palit dismisses Bobo's visions as just fantasy and convinces Bobo to do the same. Bobo's life returns to normalcy; he attains great heights as a magician; he marries Tamara and adopts the ten year old Zubin. They are a happy family till.

The irresistible Lisa Dutt enters their life. Bobo's entire subconscious screams out "the daayan is back". The great magician is pitted against the supernatural.

But nobody believes him, not Tamara, not Dr. Palit. In fact everybody loves Lisa. Bobo has to face the crucial question: is he losing his mind? Is it just his imagination that his life and family are under threat or is the daayan really back? Was there ever a daayan in his childhood?

Will it be too late before Bobo realizes the truth? Will he lose his family yet again?



Review: Legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick once remarked: “A story of the supernatural cannot be taken apart and analysed too closely. The ultimate test of whether it is good enough to raise the hairs on the back on your neck.”

Until the interval, debutant director Kannan Iyer had me pinned to my seat.  Of course, first I had to get over the fact that the hero in this film, played by Emraan Hashmi, is called Bobo. He’s a magician, so people refer to him as Bobo the Baffler. Bobo starts to suffer from hallucinations. He undergoes hypnosis and discovers that in his childhood, he was terrorised by a woman named Diana, played by Konkona Sen Sharma, who may or may not have been a Daayan – that’s Hindi for witch. Kannan seamlessly transposes a rural old wives’ tale into an urban setting. The building lift becomes a passage to hell. But the screenplay by Mukul Sharma and Bhardwaj maintains an eerie ambiguity. Is the young Bobo, played very well by Vishesh Tiwari, simply over-reacting to the new woman in his widower father’s life or is she actually a murderous witch? There are moments here that made me jump. Konkona is deliciously wicked and at one point, I got so spooked that I closed my eyes.

And then, the curse of the second half struck like a gale-force. Kalki Koechlin, playing Lisa Dutt, makes an entry. She’s an interesting actor but the film doesn’t know what to do with her. The pace slackens, the plot unravels and Kannan’s assured grip on the material loosens. By the climax, Ek Thi Daayan descends into Vikram Bhatt territory – the plot doesn’t stay true even to its own logic. It’s cheesy and simply too silly to scare. Which is a real bummer because until then, I was having a lot of fun.

Ek Thi Daayan had the potential to be an A-grade horror film but it’s an opportunity lost. However, I would love to see Diana get her own film and I’m very curious about what Kannan will do next.

Rating: 3/5
**HT