Jab Harry met Sejal - Review

Jab Harry met Sejal in one line is another DDLJ. Two strangers meet in foreign lands, travel together, fall in love and cancel the marriage of the girl with the guy she was engaged to. But on screen it is not DDLJ. It is an out and out Imtiaz Ali movie. Take two characters who look different on the outside but have their own fears hidden deep inside them, make them travel together, exploring their characters, creating a conflict point based on the character exploration and towards the end clear the characters’ fear.

Those who look at the story and think this is not up to the level of  DDLJ are up for major disappointment and if you look at Imtiaz Ali’s previous flops Rockstar, Highway, Tamasha(which are awesome movies by the way) and watch this movie in same mood, you will be disappointed a little less. But disappointment cannot be avoided. 

Imtiaz Ali likes to write complicated characters and explore them. But unlike in Highway and Tamasha, here he fails to drive home what he is trying to convey through Harry. He faced similar problem in Rockstar where there was a small gap between what he wanted to convey and what audience understood about Jordan’s character. In Jab Harry met Sejal, that gap is unforgivably huge and that is the cause for the disappointment.

First half works well, because for the talented duo, Shahrukh and Anushka, brightening up the light-hearted moments, cracking silly jokes and living up breezy moments is a cake walk. And they do it well. Second half is when the characters are trying to portray the conflict in the vision of Imtiaz Ali. Except for Anushka once saying it out “You are lonely” to Harry, there are no hints on what his problem is. Also he being lonely does not help us understand why he behaves how he behaves in some scenes. And since it is Imtiaz, the audience, at least the ones that admire his brilliant work, try hard to understand and fail in the end. That mars the whole second half. The movie never rises above that glaring problem.

So in the end we are left with (I hate saying this about an Imtiaz Ali movie) a half-baked version of another great thought and character from Imtiaz’s brain.