A story about two people who want to help kill each other can be a morbid, yet mouth-watering prospect for any story teller. You can do a lot with it: make it grim, satirical, and wild in bits. ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ tries to do a bit of all this but ends up being utterly predictable and almost apologetic for the suicidal protagonists. Come on guys. This is the new Bollywood. It’s ok to die.
The film revolves around Akash and Kiara, two people who want to end their lives, who run into each other as they are about to jump off a bridge in New York. Their unsuccessful attempts lead them to a plan where they throw themselves off the same bridge 20 days later on New Year’s eve after having spent the time doing everything they wanted to do but never could. In the process, we’ll we know what happens.
Siddharth Anand, the screenplay writer and director can take credit for the fact that he has chosen a good concept, something that is new and does manage to inject the film with good dark humor from time to time. But, he gives away too much to the viewer too soon, who now knows how the film will turn out and how the ending will be. The storyline is very thin, but even then you can add a lot of depth to the interactions between the protagonists and structure things around the 20 days with a clock ticking or the calendar flipping over, to build it up to climax. All that is sadly missing in the film. There are 9 songs that come in at an interval of 15 mins each and leave you utterly irritated, though the quality of the soundtrack is decent.
Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra are good actors and show a sparkling chemistry on screen. Their comic timing is excellent and that helps add some spark to the otherwise bland storyline. They are not supported however, by good quality material that could have done better justice to their talent.
‘Anjaana Anjaani’ is good for a few laughs here and there, but is largely disappointing