KANK: the review

Karan Johar is a megalomaniac--this fact can hardly be refuted. A typical Karan Johar film is larger-than-life, quite black and white (either people are rejoicing to no bounds or crying rivers), star-studded (an understatement) and struggling to end. His movies are in the "forget reality for 3 hours" genre. It is nice to see him finally grow up in KANK.

KANK is the story of two troubled marriages, one due to ambition and frustration, the other due to an idealized idea of love. While Dev (SRK) is a one-time star soccer player whose life deals him a cruel blow with a handicap, is married to a very ambitious Rhea (Preity Zinta), Maya (Rani) is a chronically depressed girl who has extremely idealistic and unrealistic ideas of love, due to which she cannot see the realistic love of her husband Rishi (Abhishek). A friendship between the two, started by a desire to help each other in their relationships, quickly blossoms into uncontrollable love. The rest is a series of quite complex relationship blues leading to a very realistic ending...well, almost.

From irritating 8-year olds in KKHH to rivers of tears in K3G, KANK has a mature feel to it from the word go. The first half is pretty much what everybody has heard the movie is about. The movie, like many others, could've easily collapsed in the second half in a series of melodrama, heavy dialogues and unrealistic mangnanimity. But it doesn't, and it manages to keep things quite real and believable.
The movie breaks many stereotypes that a viewer may have carried into the theater. The relationship roles are reversed; the "typical" male mistakes are committed by a female, and the typical female magnanimity is part of a male character. It left me undecided about who to feel sorry for. Karan Johar has dealt with the complexities of the relationships very well in the second half. Except for some routine scenes of unnecessary tears and hamming, he succeeds in retaining the viewers' attention. The songs, for once, seem quite well-woven in the script; nobody's dancing when they are expected to cry and vice-versa. The lack of excessive punjabiness is very relieving, so is the far lesser dose of cliched dialogues and "template" scenes. Karan Johar has worked significantly on the art of conveying without dialogues. There are a few scenes where words (or lack of words) seem very appropriate. Just when the movie is heading for a perfect realistic ending, it takes an exit to the conventional. Compared to the whole movie, the last ten minutes were a letdown for me, as Karan Johar let his desire to end the movie melodramatically get the better of him.

Out of the characters, SRK's character is easily the meatiest. He doesn't disappoint, although he could've been better. Still, considering it is a Karan Johar movie, SRK has controlled his hamming a lot. He could still benefit from a few crying lessons. Preity's character just demands male ambition and ruthlessness, and she's ok-ok. Rani's character appears lost throughout, with unearthly ideas of love and relationships. She does well. Abhishek is very good in the movie. His character is the only one that is brutally honest and sincere. This movie shows the inherited angry young man, and he gives a very sincere performance. This is definitely one actor whose learning ability seems amazing. I hated Amitabh Bachchan's character throughout; his character is pivotal to the tale, but its dichotomy of parental maturity and boyish flambuoyance is just undigestable.

While Salaam Namaste looked at spontaneous relationships maturely, this one looks at the concept of marriage maturely. I don't necessarily agree with the point of view presented, but it has been presented quite well nevertheless. The overall movie is highly watchable; don't let the 3.5 hours scare you. They whizzed past me comfortably. Karan Johar has hit several ones deep into fantasy land--this one hits much closer to home.