ADHM review: Ranbir, Aishwarya show you how boring a love story can be

There are many things Ae Dil Hai Mushkil teaches you. To begin with, if you’re a Muslim woman, you must wear a nose ring and kilos of kajal (unless you’re unwell. Then you’re allowed to skip on the eye make-up). Men who go around yelling at terminally-ill cancer patients and shoving them around are not despicable spoilt brats but romantic souls that are feeling tortured, thank you very much. Also, a woman poet of South Asian origin, living in Vienna, who writes in Urdu — a shaayra, if you please — will in all probability live in a furniture showroom, as Aishwarya Rai Bachchan does in ADHM. Finally, love is showing the object of your attention not one, but two middle fingers. 

The real tragedy of ADHM is that Haddaway wailing “What is love?” offered more insight into human relationships than 157 minutes of watching Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Fawad Khan run around in circles. (Spare a thought for Pakistani actor Imran Abbas, whose name didn’t come up in any of the outraged conversations.) There are three love stories, three heartbreaks and a whole lotta lust in ADHM, and yet there’s nary a twiggle of excitement as all these beautiful people paw at each other for our viewing pleasure.   

Karan Johar’s films have never been about realism. Instead, we expect him to show us bubbles of unrealistic privilege and luxury, that are stunning for their prettiness. However, in ADHM, Johar has reached a new level of unreality. 

Ayan Sanger (Ranbir Kapoor) is the son of a filthy rich father, an MBA student in London and nursing ambitions of being the next Mohammed Rafi. He has private jets at his command. His dad doesn’t interfere when he essentially gives up his studies and starts living in Vienna — all because Ayan has fallen headlong in lust with a gorgeous (older) woman. Along the way, he sings a song now and then because he’s the next Rafi. Given playback singer Arijit Singh’s voice, Ayan is either deluded or a little bit aurally challenged. 

This young man meets Alizeh Khan (Anushka Sharma), whose full-time job is going to hot yoga and Bollywood dance classes, and buying cacti. Within five minutes, they’re snogging, but Alizeh breaks it off with a giggle because Ayan’s kissing skills require improvement. Who’d have thunk? 

Alizeh is the manic pixie dream girl to Ayan’s slightly buttoned-up conservative hero, but the big question is whether these two will risk their friendship for that whimsical thing called love?  

Writer and director Johar hopes that the audience will care about what happens to Alizeh and Ayan. He hopes that you will long for them to come together in the tried-and-trusted Bollywood fashion. He puts them on a journey that lasts a few years, feels longer for the audience and is a testimony to the crisis of imagination in Big Bollywood. Johar’s “homage” to 1980s’ Bollywood — recreating moments from films and churning out famous dialogues — don’t show any innovation or insight. All they point out is how hackneyed every single moment in ADHM is.

Over the course of the film — this is mildly spoilerish, beware — Ayan and Alizeh meet other people, they lose touch with one another and then find each other again. Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan make cameo appearances. And yet, none of this can make you feel interested in anything beyond how Bachchan’s lipstick colour looks that rich but doesn’t leave a stain on Kapoor’s alabaster complexion. 

Unfortunately for Johar, by the time ADHM draws to a close, you would rather have one or both of the two leads die — just so that it lets you leave the theatre. 

The real tragedy of ADHM is that it is boring. Sharma is the only one who is able to infuse any life into her role and her vivaciousness is wasted on her co-actors. Kapoor is utterly lacklustre and listless as Ayan. At one point, Alizeh tells him that his attempt at seeming impassioned sounds mostly like he’s constipated — this is true of Kapoor’s performance throughout the film. It’s difficult to believe this is the same actor who we saw in Rocket Singh and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. When events veer somewhere close to demanding acting from Bachchan, her character disappears from the story.  

It would be unfair to say that nothing happens in ADHM. Actually, a whole lot happens — marriages fall apart, couples are formed, friendships are damaged, hearts are broken, new bonds are built, Fawad Khan’s hair is poufed into an unflattering bouffant — but it’s all happening off-screen. On screen, ADHM is painfully repetitive. The script is shambolic and doesn’t have the courage to properly explore any of the interesting ideas that are in its plot. For instance, does religion become a factor at any point when the two people in a relationship are Hindu and Muslim, for instance? What does it take for a woman — who couldn’t say no to her father matchmaking for her — to leave her family, get divorced and live entirely on her own? 

Instead, we see pretty people go to parties and more parties, and come home to furniture showrooms. Ayan’s life is basically a string of women he picks up. At one point, to break pattern, he picks up a few street musicians instead and together they become an awesome, internet sensation band. That’s how the music industry works, folks. 

Despite all their artifice, Johar’s films are successful because they’re able to connect to audiences at an emotional level. Despite the overacting and the abundant use of glycerine, you empathise with the characters on screen and you rejoice when their nonsensical conflicts are resolved into a happy ending. In contrast, ADHM is hollow. It’s so completely artificial that it’s impossible to relate to anything that happens to anyone. At one point, to show visceral pain, Ayan lies down on the floor and plonks a potted plant on his chest repeatedly. If that doesn’t convince a girl of his heartbreak, what will?

The only advantage of watching ADHM this weekend is that if you get late because of Diwali traffic, you will have missed nothing. In fact, if you enter after intermission, the film might even seem interesting for a few minutes.

Happy Diwali everyone.