OK Jaanu
Starring: Aditya Roy Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Leela Samson
Director: Shaad Ali
1/2 star
A remake of Mani Ratnam's 2015 Tamil romantic comedy
OK Kanmani
(OK Darling),
OK Jaanu
stars Aditya Roy Kapoor (as Adi) and Shraddha Kapoor (as Tara).
Set in the fast-paced city of Mumbai, the couple meet at a wedding and fall in love, but are both commitment-phobic, and decide to put their careers before romance.
Adi, a video-game developer, dreams of moving to the United States, while Tara is waiting to hear about her admission to a university in Paris, where she wants to study to become an architect.
Despite all this, they decide to move in together under the watchful eyes of an older couple - former judge Gopi, played by Naseeruddin Shah, and his wife Charu (Leela Samson, reprising her role from the original film), the latter of whom has Alzheimers.
The film is almost a scene-by-scene remake of the Tamil movie, but fails to make much of an impact. In a bid to emulate the stars of the original - Dulquer Salman and Nithya Menon - the leads (who are rumoured to be couple in real life) try too hard and fail to make their relationship believable. They have practically no chemistry, which is a big disappointment after they hit it big with their previous romantic film,
Aashiqui 2
.
Shah and Samson make for a much more heart-warming couple and have more chemistry, making you wish they had more screen space.
While there are a few genuinely funny scenes, for most part it is boring, cringeworthy and utterly cliched.
Roy Kapoor has an endearing boyish charm capable of making female fans swoon, but here he does not really make an impression. Shraddha Kapoor also delivers a decidedly average performance.
Nevertheless, there are two highlights - Shraddha Kapoor's impeccable styling, and the music by AR Rehman, which has been retained from the Tamil version with lyrics by Gulzar.
Neither of these, however, are worth wasting two hours and 15 minutes of your life.
Do yourself a favour and watch the Tamil version with subtitles, because the Hindi version is a pale imitation.
ajhurani@thenational.ae
