I wonder what Mr. Secretive Aditya Chopra is making of the different plots of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, circulating on the net.
Shah Rukh Khan's Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi movie poster
Is the story of RNBDJ – acronyms seem to be getting longer, at least one should be thankful we don’t have movies with names like Paap Ko Jala Kar Raakh Kar Daloonga anymore – worse or better than that?
One of the popular stories that is being bandied about goes like this:
Shah Rukh Khan is married to a younger woman (newcomer Anushka Sharma) as a result of which they have a “difference of opinion.” About what? Whether she really is a younger woman or he is a older man or whether the grass is green and the sky is blue!
Photo: Model Anushka Sharma
OK, whatever it means, the “difference of opinion” translates into Anushka participating in a reality dance show Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi where she is wooed by a charming, handsome young man (Shah Rukh Khan with spiky hair, an improved version our fuddy duddy older man.) Of course, our heroine doesn’t get it till the end of the movie that the guy serenading her is her husband until he goes down on his knees and informs her, I bet. Talk about show and tell.
Photo: SRK as the dude in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
The other stories put forward say that SRK has a double role, one of the fuddy duddy guy and the other of the handsome dude. One of them win the girl, the other gets a consolation prize, who could be Deepika Padukone or Priyanka Chopra. What a punishment.
Imdb has added Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee and Kajol to the mix, in their cast list. What is going on? It’s almost like a typist pool with temps.
I guess this another of Yashraj Films’s (YRF) attempts to make “hat ke” cinema. After the debacle of the 2007 Tara Rum Pum and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, YRF has realized that rehashing the same ol’ mushfest is not really working. It also recognized the fact that many small budget movies like Khosla Ka Ghosla and Pyaar Ke Side Effects were doing very well in the cities. None of these new movies had stuck to the tried-and-tested.
Lesson learnt, YRF came back with Chak De! India in 2007. The movie was refreshing, meaningful, and a superhit to boot. But notice, Aditya Chopra had nothing to do with it, except produce. Chak De was written and directed by Jaideep Sahni (promising writer of Khosla Ka Ghosla) and Shimit Amin (director of the acclaimed 2004 Ab Tak Chhappan.)
YRF also tried to use other successful directors and writers for the movies it produced, like Pradeep Sarkar and Kunal Kohli. However, despite a difference in approach, none of the movies following Chak De! India - Aaja Nachle, Laaga Chunri Mein Daag, Tashan and Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic - worked. The biggest problem with all of these was story selection. If you want to be different, you cannot strut the old stuff. Except for Aaja Nachle, all of the others had a dated storyline.
So now Aditya Chopra wants to make another “different” romantic comedy with Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. RNBDJ is written and directed by Aditya Chopra. So far, Adi has written and directed two movies – Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) and Mohabbatein (2000), the former a smash hit and the latter a dud.
If the plot of RNDBJ is indeed about a dance reality show, a boring husband, and a fun-loving young wife, Aditya Chopra has drawn from his own Aaja Nachle for the story. In Aaja Nachle, Vinay Pathak plays a humorless, stuffy man to a bored and frustrated Sushmita Mukherjee. When he overhears what she thinks of him he is willing to participate in a dance program to woo his wife. So far so good. As a cameo, it is delightful but as a full-fledged movie I am not too sure, even if it’s SRK.
Will RNDBJ work? I doubt it. The Jassi-loving Junta will be turned on, I am sure, by the whole ugly duckling thingamajig but I am not too sure they want to see a guy do that. Personally, I don’t dislike YRF romances but it’s the treatment that is irritating – lots of lectures and sentimental outpourings. But one can put that down to a “difference in opinion.”