WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
Love is pain. For all the beauty and warmth that can be found in its grasp, why is it that heartbreak and loss often accompany it? Additionally, when one seeks to let another know the depth of feeling that has been gained over time being together, what happens when the sentiment isn’t returned? Professional musician Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) knows all too well this sense of anguish and unsettled, incomplete existence. Looking to have fun and experience much needed relaxation, a foray into a local club causes him to meet Alizeh (Anushka Sharma). Vibrant, carefree, fun-loving, and independent minded while dealing with her own emotional baggage, she initially snubs Ayan’s advances until finally the two become fast friends.
However, while Alizeh finds a happily refreshed existence via the deep friendship they engage in, especially with Ayan’s current involvement with a pretentious model, Lisa (Lisa Haydon), his desire to go further suddenly creates unexpected and painful rifts in their blossoming closeness. Finding themselves at an impasse, Ayan’s subsequent actions lead him away from Alizeh and to yet another woman, Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), whom he likewise falls for. Yet, once again, circumstances continue to prevent him from not thinking about what he feels for Alizeh. More and more situations keep bringing them across each other’s paths, with inner strife, current and past wounds, Alizeh’s ex, Ali (Fawad Khan), all factoring into Ayan and Alizeh’s tumultuous passion play, whose results could be even more hurtful.
Next, my Mind:
What honestly needs to be understood in watching and digesting writer/director/producer Karan Johar’s newest dramatic epic is that it isn’t a love story, at least not in the typical sense the label so often carries with it. Does it deal with love-yes. Does it involve people in love-yes. But, the primary gist of this awesomely well-executed, 158-minute, visually lush, and fantastically acted narrative is the concept of love spurned–unreciprocated, unsatisfied–and the journey of highly volatile emotional states of being this encompasses. The deeply troubled road travelled by Ayan and Alizeh is fraught with the euphoric peaks and devastating lows we can reach when the heart is immersed so emphatically in another person, but where the differing objectives each individual has don’t match.
Kapoor absolutely soars in his portrayal of Ayan, a man so overtly taken by surprise at the yawning depths of love he develops for Alizeh, that it makes the character’s interactions with her and the accompanying attempts to truly woo her utterly both amazingly touching yet so polarizing and heart-wrenching. His inner passion and intent for her not being returned only drives him to further sadness and anger, finding any way to alleviate the pain, unsuccessfully. Likewise, Sharma’s Alizeh is equally emotive, a woman whose past anguishes are so wonderfully, albeit reluctantly at first, driven away by the unforeseen bond with Ayan, only to then find her notions of genuine friendship rejected, causing her to then face her past and experience the angst and misery of indecision, knowing how she treasures what Ayan means to her.
Adding to this fiery mix is a fantastic performance by Bollywood queen Rai Bachchan, whose ageless, ethereal beauty and potent dramatic acting continues to command attention as Saba, another link in Ayan’s desperation to find his love accepted. Solid supporting turns from Haydon and Khan round out the primary cast, and two superb cameos made this reviewer cheer raucously inside. Overall, “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” is an outstanding, affecting, and first-rate piece of cinematic candy sure to evoke the emotional responses in viewers like the characters onscreen.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
