Review of “Gori Tere Pyaar Mein”

While watching “Gori Tere Pyaar Mein” you may think you are watching two different movies separated by an interval, only the lead actors are same with same screen characters in both halves. The first half’s story is of a young architect Sriram Venkat(Imran Khan) from Bengaluru who falls in love with a north Indian social activist Dia Sharma(Kareena Kapoor Khan), but soon they realized that their motive in life is different so they broke up. In the second half the story shifts to rural India as the social activist has now shifted her base to a village in Gujrat and her ex-boyfriend goes to the village to win her heart again.

Well its quite clear that the story has nothing new to offer it can remind us of so many films like “Dilwale Dulheniya Le Jayenge”, “Maine Pyaar Kiya”, “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya”, “Ramaiya Vastavaiya” etc. But the narrative style is refreshing in the first half at least. The way the character of Vasudha has been added in the story, is quite interesting. Vasudha (Shraddha Kapoor) is a south Indian girl whom Sriram’s parents have chosen for him. In the first half Sriram narrates his story to Vasudha and in this way audience comes to know about his relationship with Dia. The breezy romance between Sriram and Dia looks good. The marriage sequence between Sriram and Vasudha is also nice

and funny. Here all credit goes to the screenplay writers Arshad Syed and Punit Malhotra for keeping the story interesting, in spite of the fact that the story has been told on screen so many times earlier. The dialogues written by the duo are also witty and funny and go well with the multiplex audiences. But the problem starts with the second half as it goes to a more serious and dramatic way but cannot capture it properly. In the second half the story tries to highlight serious issues like corruption but it handles the issue in a childish way. In fact there was no need to be so much serious when you can win audiences heart with the fun element. The saviour of the second half is the character of Lateshbhai(Anupam Kher), the collector of the village. This character brings out the lighter moments in the seriousness of the second half.

As a director Puneet Malhotra is very much comfortable in the first half of the movie as it has quite similar setup like his first movie “I Hate Luv Stories”, but in the second half he tries to come out his comfort zone but fails to deliver. It is a good effort by him but everyone cannot make “Lagaan” in a village setup.

Acting wise, Imran Khan has played a young spoilt brat, for whom making relationships and

then breaking up them is nothing new but one day he finds his true love and then does lots ofunexpected things to get his love. Sounds familiar? Yes it is familiar as Imran has playedsuch characters in too many movies; more recently in “I Hate Luv Stories” he had portrayed almost similar character. So it can be said that after doing some experimental roles like “Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola” and “Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara”, Imran is back to his comfort zone and he has done quite a okay job.

Kareena Kapoor looks very good in both urban and rural avatar. She acted well and danced

well too (with shaking her tooh). But the only question comes here why Kareena chose to do such a movie at this stage of her career where she has nothing new to do. Is it her friendship with the producer Karan Johar or she really don’t gets exciting offers after her marriage?

And where is the chemistry between Imran Khan and Kareena Kapoor? Both of them looked quite nice in their last movie together “Ek Main Aur Ek Tu”. Probably the story there was of two friends so there missing chemistry as a romantic pair was not noticed there, but in a romantic movie the

chemistry is required. Here Imran Khan has shown better chemistry with Shraddha Kapoor. There is a possibility that soon the two can be seen opposite each other as lead pairs. Not only with Shraddha Kapoor , Imran Khan looks good with Esha Gupta too in a song sequence.

Apart from the lead pair, Anupam Kher has done a wonderful job as Lateshbhai. Also the actors, who have played parents to Sriram and Dia, have provided good support.

Shraddha Kapoor is in the movie in a guest appearance but she impresses with her talent in the limited screen time she gets.

The technical team is pretty much okay. Mahesh Limaye’s cinematography is eye catching. The sets designed by Shasank Tare are good but in the second half it could have been better. You can find such a neat and clean village only if the producer is Karan Johar. Akiv Ali’s editing is okay, although the length of the film could have been a bit shorter. Background music by Salim-Suleiman goes well with the mood of the film. Choreography of the songs like “Tooh” and “Chingam Chabake” is done well by Remo D’souza.

The music by Vishal-Shekhar is already popular and it will help the movie to get a good

business in its initial days. But just like the film there is no freshness in the music too. It is just like any other Vishal-Shekhar soundtrack, in some of the songs the influence of other Vishal-Shekhar songs are pretty much clear. The lyrics are average. But hats off to the lyricist Anvita Dutt Guptan, for writing the song “Tooh”. No one had ever imagine that there can be such a song which can describe a human body part so directly that too without sounding vulgar by the smart use of Punjabi words.

Overall the movie has nothing new to offer but the same old story has been told in a refreshing way with good actors, funny moments and dialogues, though the second half is not enough interesting. If you want to see a romantic movie and have a good time with your partner in the theatre then you can go for this one, others can wait for the television premier.