Debutant director Danish Aslam serves us disappointing fare in Break Ke Baad this weekend - a crisp first half followed by a damp and soggy second half. The teekha first half has Deepika's sizzling act as Aaliya - bringing some life & vitality to her usually expressionless face. Imran plays the chocolate boy lover Abhay – a role he has done admirably in the past and is the likable meethi chutney. Together, against my expectation, they both produce a very likable dish and have a crackling on screen chemistry. However, that spark between them is completely doused by the insipid writing in the second half.
The opening credits are a montage of two six year olds falling in love as they grow up, with a shared passion of Hindi movies. The girl grows up to be the impetuous Aaliya who is full of life, but sometimes does not care about anyone but herself. Abhay is the ultra-sweet guy who tolerates all her tantrums and still adores her. Maybe because he realizes he needs her more than she does. However, when Aaliya decides to fly off to Australia to study, the relationship cant take the strain and the 'break' happens.
This is where the movie goes to dogs – as it starts focussing more on other characters and side-plots more than the lead pair. Sharmila Tagore as Aaliya's mother heads a useless track about the ills of the world of showbiz. She also seals my belief that yesteryear's charming heroines lose their expressive faces in the process of ageing (maybe to botox). And hence are better staying alive in old movie reruns rather than acting in newer movies. Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini and now Sharmila Tagore – their faces struggle to convey different emotions – and end up looking almost similar in all scenes.
The movie meanders along for quite a while before becoming a coming-of- age movie for both Aaliya and Abhay. And this is the movie's biggest failure – since the scriptwriter clearly doesn't have the maturity to handle this topic as much as he has a handle on romance. The climax is stupid even by the low standards of rom-coms – and which is where you write the movie off as a failure
PS - Something struck me a couple of days after I watched the movie – when you watch the movie, you can tell me if I was wrong or right. I thought Aaliya's character and idiosyncrasies were heavily based on Jab We Met's Geet . None of the Bhatinda Punjabi madness, but a calculated effort by the makers to use that quirkiness and happy-go-lucky nature. But then again, Geet was a million times better than Aaliya would ever be.
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