Jab We Met

Director: Imtiaz Ali

Producer: Dhilin Mehta

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Kareena Kapoor, Kiran Juneja, Dara Singh

Watching Jab We Met in a theatre one could not help noticing that for a group of youngsters sitting behind me, the film had turned into an interactive game. Taking turns, they kept guessing the next scene and sometimes even the dialogues. And they got it right most of the times. Why is a film that borrows its plot from half-a-dozen other films, called fresh, and that too repeatedly?

Jab We Met is about Aditya Kashyap (Shahid Kapoor), who has been ditched by his girlfriend and Geet (Kareena), who has plans to run away from home to marry her boyfriend, Anshuman. Aditya and Geet meet on a train and Aditya falls in love with Geet. However, he must still help her get to her boyfriend. When it is time for her to marry her boyfriend she realizes that she actually loves Aditya. So she marries Aditya. Watching the film, you get a sense of déjà vu: instances from Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Walk in the Clouds… constantly flash before you.

With this thin and as-fresh-as-your-morning-breath plot the film tries to sustain itself on the constant chatter of its heroine Geet. What is even stranger, though, is the willful plotting.

The film opens with Aditya in a shock. His father is dead, his girlfriend is getting married to someone else and his company is in trouble. So he walks out of his own life with a dazed look. It is not made clear which of the above three reasons are actually troubling him or if it is all the three. In any case, in a state of daze, Aditya makes his way to the nearest railway station and boards the first train that moves. On the train, he meets Geet (or Bhatinda ki Sikhni, if you please) who banters away for the next several minutes. She doesn’t know him from Adam but gets down from the train in the middle of the night because Aditya did so, and they both miss their trains! And by some strange logic, the responsibility of getting Geet to Bhatinda falls on Aditya. So they share hotel room, become friends, exchange their life histories and sing their way to Bhatinda. Since it is Punjab (Bhatinda), the extended family of Geet take it upon them to force their warm hospitality on Aditya, have him drinks lassi and do bhangra.

Another forced twist in the plot makes Aditya and Geet run away together and yet again the responsibility to get Geet, this time to her boyfriend Anshuman, falls on Aditya. Geet goes to Anshuman and Aditya goes back to his life a completely changed person.

Now that Aditya is in love with Geet, he sings for his staff in the office and addresses a conference peppered with Punjabi jokes. His joie-de-vivre works such wonders that within a few months, the company starts to flourish beyond imagination! For long, Aditya does not try to find out what happened to Geet after he left her. When he does, he finds out she is not with Anshuman. So, Aditya tries to sort out the differences the two (but then also admits his love for Geet). The quarrel with her boyfriend over, it’s again time for another trip to Bhatinda. In a painfully stretched climax, where everyone talks and no one listens, the heroine is given ample time to make up her mind on who she wants to marry. It is strange she needed so much time to know her mind, for we knew it all along! Decision made, the Aditya and Geet break into an item number on their own wedding!

Kareena Kapoor does a convincing act with her spunk and if it gets tedious at times, it’s probably the script. A few of her dialogues do earn the distinction of being the only fresh things in the film. Shahid Kapoor starts off awkwardly with an unconvincing dazed walk, but his performance is satisfactory afterwards. All other actors are playing stereotypes and they do what is expected of them. Within the scope of the film, the director, Imtiaz Ali extracts credible performances and tells this concocted tale simply and without any pretensions.

What is the point of making a film like Jab We Met? What were the director and the producer thinking? Safe bet and easy money, I guess!