Movie Review – OK Jaanu: Simply Melodious!

January 13, 2017

Conflict between love and ambition is fully tested in this modern day live-in love story

Movie Review

Release Date: January 13, 2017
Starring: Aditya Roy Kapur, Shraddha Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Leela Samson, Karan Nath
Directed by: Shaad Ali Sahgal
Produced by: Mani Ratnam, Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Hiroo Yash Johar
Story and Screenplay: Mani Ratnam
Dialogue: Gulzar
Cinematography: Ravi K Chandran
Music by: AR Rahman
Duration: 2:16 hours
Genre: Romance Drama
Censor Rating: U/A

About Movie OK Jaanu

OK Jaanu is the Hindi adaptation of Mani Ratnam’s Tamil hit film, ‘O Kadhal Kanmani‘. Mani Ratnam is banking on Shaad Ali’s talent to deliver an encore with the Hindi version, albeit with some changes as per Hindi audience’s taste. The story touches upon a now increasingly common conflict between young couples caught up between pursuing their careers independently yet trying to maintain a sense of connection and love with their partners. Live-in relationships today don’t raise as much of an eyebrow as earlier, but it is still a sensitive topic in most homes. OK Jaanu has the lead couple in a live-in relationship and seem perfectly comfortable with it and the times they spend together and then ambition threatens to test their relationship to the fullest. Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor have delivered a great performance together and their chemistry, both on and off screen, shows in the film.

Performances

Adi played by Aditya Roy Kapur is a young and ambitious game designer who originally hails from Lucknow and has big dreams of making it to the US. Tara, played by Shraddha Kapoor, is a young girl working in an architecture firm in Mumbai. She has her own ambitions of going to Paris and building an identity for herself. A chance meeting at a friend’s wedding brings them close enough to enter into a live-in relationship. The movie portrays a natural acceptance to a live-in and flows easily with the story, until their own ambitions to build a career come in the way and this is where the drama begins. The young generation will be able to identify closely with the conflict that love and career brings into relationships and how they force either or both partners to make a difficult choice. The film has some soulful music created by AR Rahman on the back of beautiful lyrics from Gulzar. Ravi Chandran’s cinematography does full justice to the love birds and their natural chemistry only underlines the pair’s second successful film after Aashiqui 2. Naseeruddin Shah and Leela Samson have both delivered strong performances.

OK Jaanu Music

AR Rahman had created the compositions for the original Tamil film ‘O Kadhal Kanmani’ and he has used these in this film too, other than three new compositions. Gulzar has done full justice to AR Rahman with his soulful lyrics and remains the maestro of lyrics. The Humma song people would recall was first created by AR Rahman for Mani Ratnam’s Bombay in 1995. Badshah and Tanishk Bagchi have come out with their version of the same song and people are going to like this one too. Get to know New Movie Release 2017

Details of songs in the movie

OK Jaanu

Singer(s): AR Rahman, Shrinidhi Venkatesh
Song duration: 3:26 mins

The Humma Song

Singer(s): AR Rahman, Jubin Nautiyal, Shashaa Tirupati, Badshah, Tanishk Bagchi
Song duration: 2:59 mins

Enna Sona

Singer(s): Arijit Singh
Song duration: 3:33 mins

Jee Lein

Singer(s): AR Rahman, Arjun Chandy, Neeti Mohan, Savithri R Prithvi
Song duration: 4:46 mins

Kaara Fankaara

Singer(s): Kaly, Hard Kaur, ADK, Shashaa Tirupati, Ashima Mahajan, Paroma Dasgupta
Song duration: 5:47 mins

Saajan Aayo Re

Singer(s): Jonita Gandhi, Nakash Aziz
Song duration: 6:09 mins

Maula Wa Sallim

Singer(s): AR Ameen
Song duration: 3:12 mins

Suun Bhavara

Singer(s): Shashaa Tirupati
Song duration: 4:23 mins

What’s good?

The pair’s natural affinity is something that will go down well with younger audiences, as will the love and career conflict with which they will closely identify. The locations and shots are beautiful as is Rahman’s music.

What’s bad?

The movie follows a nice flow in the first part but as many other Bollywood films, the second part does lose the flow in parts. Some people may even find it a bit of a drag.