Title: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Director: Aditya Choprah
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Vinay Pathak, Anushka Sharma
Length: about 2 hours and 45 minutes

Plot: The movie is essentially about an ordinary couple who get married in exceptional circumstances. Surinder Sahni (SRK) is a very ordinary, quiet, middle class man who goes to attend the marriage of his teacher's daughter - Taani (Anushka Sharma). The bus carrying the groom and his family meets with an accident which no one survives. Ye sunke bechaari abhaagan dulhan ke pitaji ko dil ka daura padta hai (sob sob) and on his deathbed he expresses his desire that his daughter should now marry SRK. They both agree, get married. When they return home Taani tells SRK that she will be a good wife and all but can never love him. Suri however wants the same old bubbly Taani back. To get her back he agrees when she asks him to enroll herself in a dancing competition. With the help of his best friend (Vinay Pathak) Suri changes his dressup and enters the same competition as Raj. By a freak coincidence he also ends up as her partner. Now Suri must win her heart as Raj and must also help her out of this perpetual sadness that stays in her heart.


My Psychobabble: You know it is very surprising to see a SRK movie that is so low key and so low budget. There are no big fancy sets, shining dresses or that starry eyed dreamy feel that accompany his almost every movie. RNBDJ is simple. Very simple. Its theme, execution, sets, props, locations are far from extravagant and I liked that bit. In this regard it is almost like Welcome To Sajjanpur. A story of few simple ordinary middle class Indian citizens living their ordinary life. The story is interesting if unrealistic. SRK's portrayal of Surinder Sahni (Suri) is quite good. His body language, facial expressions are all as you would expect of a normal middle class Indian man. The typical "SRK" arrogance is completely missing from the character or Suri which my dear readers is a first. I do not recall watching any SRK movie where his acting is not reeking with this particular brand of "SRK arrogance" which is one step short of him actually branding something like "I AM GOD" on his forehead. A surprisingly slimmer Vinay Pathak is amazing in his character. But then he is one of those actors from whom you will expect nothing less. Anushka Sharma (Tanni) is simply irritating. She looks awful, has the acting prowess of an orangutan and can move her body only as gracefully as an 18 wheeler truck trying to do a Salsa number. Paying to watch her contorted face at her horrendous attempt at acting was like shitting a cactus from my arse and then wiping it off with sandpaper - painful.

By the way didn't an orangutan act well in a Hollywood movie? Well strike that statement of mine then. Even monkeys can act better than she can.


While the movie is passable as good, there are loads of directorial mistakes the most prominent being the characters themselves. The switches between Suri and Raj are frankly put - stupid. It would have been OK if Raj was presented as Suri's alter ego and not just a face or a persona he "deliberately" puts on at times. As an audience you cannot help but think how in the world can Suri be so outgoing and witty with his words. Who taught him to say all that? Where is this confidence coming from? Director apparently didn't want to bother himself with too much attention to detail as far as the characters are concerned. The movie is rather long and after a certain point it just seems to drag on and on forever. The director loses his hold over the movie completely and you are left to wonder just "what the fock is going on now!". Songs are irritating and often just creep up on you when you aren't expecting them in the least.

Verdict: Again an interesting basic concept but a shoddy execution. The movie is passable as good but is not brilliant or a typical "SRK" movie in any sense. It would be helpful to go to the cinema expecting to sit on dog poo on your seat. That way you will have at least one thing to feel good about when you don’t find any on your seat! If you do...well you will have something worse to cry about than the movie!