‘Raanjhanaa’ is entirely shouldered by its debutant male lead Dhanush though performance of all other actors, are fine. The film is a complete, splendid as well as entertaining work in lieu of direction, cinematography, music, dialogue, screenplay and even casting design. A little bit of confusion arises in the story after the interval but at the top of everything Dhanush’s acting makes up the little bit of shortcoming and the script turns out to be interesting till the end.
Plot – ‘Raanjhanaa’ is basically a love story between Kundan (Dhanush K. Raja), a boy from a Tamil Brahmin family, who develops a crush on Zoya (Sonam Kapoor), a Muslim girl since his childhood. In fact, it was a case of ‘Love at first sight’ for Kundan.
Once, the boy proposes Zoya for love, but she rejects. But after some emotional moments, the girl starts sharing some hearty feeling with the boy. But, then their love is strongly opposed by the girl`s orthodox parents and she is sent to another city to pursue her studies.
Both of them are grown up now after a span of 8 years. In the city, Zoya finds a pal (Abhay Deol) and starts loving him for some time. However, on the other side, Kundan is now waiting eagerly to have his beloved back in town. And finally she returns perhaps to complete her love life after a lot of twists in the story.
Review – The love story shown in the film is not akin to the traditional ones those are normally presented in Bollywood films. While the first half of the movie bears the smoothness of a gentle love story, filled with some moments of inter-religious tension (quiet similar to that of ‘Bombay’), the second half takes a contemporary political turn. But everything seems to be cool till the end of the two-and-a-half-hour film.
Performances – The ‘Kolaveri Di’ singer Dhanush excels in acting whenever he appears on the screen. From his very first Bollywood movie, the actor has proved that look is not a major constraint to reach the zenith of success and earning appraisal, if you have talent.
(We don’t feel Dhanush lacks in look at par with the other Bollywood actors, but due to a slightly unusual trend of Bollywood, which prescribes that whatever role the hero may portray, he should look handsome, only we wanted to discuss about the look)
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For Sonam Kapoor, the female lead actor of the film, this is one of her finest performances in a Bollywood film. After ‘Raanjhanaa’ only, she can be truly called as the inheritor of the veteran actor father Anil Kapoor.
Besides the main cast, the supporting cast is also awesome. Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub and Swara Bhaskar are brilliant. Unlike many other movies, the casting director of the film deserves a special mention, who has perfectly chosen all the actors. During Ayyub and Dhanush’s conversation the UPSC point is humor-inducing and entertaining.
AR Rehman sir is again rocking and all the songs are perfectly placed and filmed. All numbers of the film are rightly placed with song and dance sequences. Though all tracks are soothing enough, ‘Piya Milenge’, ‘Tum Tak’, the title track and ‘Tu Mun Shudi,’ are the songs that one would love to hum.
The film is technically very sound too. Cinematographers Natarajan Subramaniam and Vishal Sinha have beautifully captured the original scenes of the Hindu Holy city of Banaras.
The dialogues by Himanshu Sharma are exciting. They are logical, funny and entertaining and utterly suit the scenes.
And finally coming to the directorial analysis, Anand L. Rai’s direction deserves big admiration for its flawlessness. He plays with some twists and that makes the audience to sit tight in the theatre till the end.
Verdict – ‘Raanjhanaa’ is one of the best Bollywood movies. And still if you are in confusion whether to watch it or not, you must watch it for Dhanush.
Director: Aanand L Rai
Cast: Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol
TNI rating – **** 4 Stars out of 5.
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