Jaanoo is perhaps the personal projects of writer Jainendra Jain, who wrote, directed and produced this romantic drama cum tearjerker. The film's first half is absolutely fantastic, interestingly narrating the love story between Ravi and Bittu. He is a theatre actor who moonlights as a TV repairman, and she is quite a spoiled brat, daughter to a wealthy businessman who raised her by himself and she is thus quite the typical daddy's girl. The film stars Jackie Shroff in one of his early films and Khushboo as the girl. Shroff is one of my favourites, and he does full justice to the part. He always brings something realistic to his parts, and this one is no exception. The film, however, belongs to the very young Khushboo, who is pretty and natural and who is that rare combination of both youthful, innocent charm and ladylike sophistication. Their romance is beautiful, but then the second half turns the entire story into a melodrama. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, by the way. At first I identified several similarities between this film and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's classic Mili, which might have inspired the director, but ultimately this is a different film. Rati Agnihotri, Anupam Kher, Saeed Jaffrey, and Sulabha Deshpande, all do well in supporting roles. The film is presented as a love triangle on this website, which is clearly not the case. A nice watch, anyway.
