cINe tALK the pAIN of UNreqUIteD LoVe

r aa N jha N aa

STARRING: Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Swara Bhaskar, Mohammed Zeeshan

DIRECTOR: Anand L. Rai HHHHH

This hugely enriching film about the pain of love has four heroes: Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, A.R. Rahman’s music and the city of Varanasi. Not necessarily in that order. He loves her to death. Cross his heart and hope to die. And it’s their wedding day. But they’re not getting married to one another. As he returns exhausted from messing up her marriage to another man, the slumbering band-baaja wallahs at his own wedding hasten awake and begin playing a wedding song wearily.

It’s a brilliant moment defining the contradictions and savage ironies of romantic associations.

Sometimes it’s not so cool to fall in love.

This non-derivative take on unrequited love set amidst the bustling river-bank politics of Varanasi, tells us that love can kill your spirit, soul, self esteem and finally, your physical presence as well.

Raanjhanaa is an opulent, epic, seductive, raging and rippling ode to love. The script by Himanshu Sharma, journeys from lover-boy Kundan’s childhood when he first sees his object of adoration doing her namaaz, and follows him to adulthood, much in the same way as he follows Zoya around.

In seductive spirals of song-filled rhapsody, we see Kundan pursuing his lady-love through the robust gallis and mohallahs of Varanasi. It’s a beautifully charted journey, made vastly enjoyable by the director’s confident and unhurried control over his lover’s uncontrollable passion. It’s as though Rai knows that the heart is more prone to betrayal than redemption.

She slaps him? That’s fine. He loves her all the more for it. She turns his proposal down? That’s okay. He’ll do it again...and... again. It’s the protagonist’s single-mindedness that navigates this enchanting love story through a series of circumstances that make Kundan look as brazen as they make destiny look cruel.

Throughout Kundan’s selfdestructive odyssey into the heart’s darkest regions, we are made privy into his agony and ecstasy. We know exactly how his heart beats. Maybe partly because it beats to the sound of A.R. Rahman’s evocative songs. We see Zoya just the way Kundan does: tall, creamycomplexioned, warm, seductive and unattainable.

Dhanush, as the worshipping loverboy, lets his face become the map of his heart. So transparent are his feelings for the girl that every kind word or gesture from her brings a response of teary gratitude in his eyes.

The characters dither, stray, falter and lose focus. The narrative never does. Every performer, including bit-player Rahul Shankliya who the forlorn hero encounters at the river ghat, seems to have come into the picture knowing not only his or her own lines, but everyone else’s as well.

There is an air of unrehearsed preparedness in the way the actors pitch their characters. Dhanush’s