Raanjhanaa: Different kind of heartbeat

Raanjhanaa
Starring: Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Swara Bhaskar
Rated: 5.5/10

It’s not the usual Bollywood kind of love story. No badtameez dil beating up a frenzy here. No saans mein teri saans ki khushboo emanating from lovelorn lovers. No Kolaveri Di of a spurned lover. And definitely no Tanu marrying Manu, or thinking of it even once.
 
Yet, it is a compelling romance, a love story of full surrender, no ego and complete emotion. It is small-town, it is passionate and it is full of moments we have forgotten ever existed in a romance. And Dhanush, as the Benarasi launda of a Tamil pundit, is quite the boy he is made out to be — delightfully real, delightfully apt and delightfully small town. He talks of wrist cutting and cuts them too, he takes 17 slaps to win over the affection of his girl, he waits for her for years and does not give up when she fails to recognise him after her return from JNU and its syrupy student politics.

Not just him, even his friend is quite a character uttering hilarious and typically Benarasi one-liners that add to the ghats and the bylanes of Varanasi not seen in Bollywood ever since Rani Mukherjee emerged from one of its traditional houses to become an escort girl in Mumbai in Laagaaa Chunari Mein Daag.
Director Anand L Rai has done quite a job here in capturing the nuances of a Benarasi rehan sehan and he has also done well to keep this romance in sync with old-world charm when emotions ruled the roost and Generation X had not killed moments with preference for friends-with-benefits kind of modernese. 
Rai’s main instrument in orchestrating this romance is Dhanush who does well to completely merge into Kundan’s character. He looks every bit the callow lad from Varanasi who will never give up on his love. Sonam, as Zoya, looks beautiful and plays the avenging angel to perfection. 

The always dishy Abhay Deol is sadly in a blink-and-go role here. As an idealistic student leader of Left-oriented JNU he scores but it’s time he did a full-fledged movie on his own. As for Ranjhanaa, the film is captivating and emotional but, going by modern standards, somewhat impractical in its seering, one-sided passion. 

Perhaps, that’s why Kundan’s love story loses track by the end of it all, moving away from Benaras, going into Punjab and finally being laid to rest in Delhi with issues taking over love, with Zoya trying to play politics and with a scheming Chief Minister getting to trigger the ultimate casualty of love gone sour.
The redeeming point? Ranjhanaa is a different kind of hearbeat, one which refuses to compromise.

Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer on June 23, 2015

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