Jab We Met

DIRECTOR: Imtiaz Ali

She’s a high-spirited, motor-mouthed lass, whose fave pastime is running away. He’s a poor little very rich boy, who's been dumped. They meet, on a train — she’s off to Bhatinda, he knows not where he's going, and is past caring — and instantly get into the squabbling strangers mode.

Sounds familiar? That’s where SRK and Kajol were, in Dilwale Dulhaniya.. more than a decade back, right? Right. Imtiaz Ali places his lead pair Shahid and Kareena not in a spanking U-rail bogey, but in its grungier Indian Railways counterpart. Adi and Geet spend a night, not in a charming Swiss chalet, but a hole-in-the-wall hotel in Ratlam, where they charge by the hour, but main kya ji, same difference. These 2007 reluctant runaways fetch up too, like those older lovers, in a huge Punjabi household full of taya-jis, chai-jis, a venerable old dar-ji, and yes, a third party who’s ‘coming to see saadi Geet’, as Adi looks on, from the side.

What makes this movie almost as bubble-gummy appealing is the two-film old director’s ability to create felt moments in a story whose end you know right when it starts. As well as the fact that this is the first time Shahid and Kareena have been convincing as young-lovers-who-can't-keep-their-eyes-off-each-other.

It also gives us a Shahid who’s discovered that less is more: he lets his eyes do the talking, just the kind of guy gals want. From the row behind, came a smitten female sigh: “he’s so cute ya”.. Yeah, Shahid has the eyes, and the ayes. As the chulbuli Punjabi kudi, Kareena does her usual all-over-the-place thing, but post-interval, when she’s quiet and unvarnished, she’s much better. The stand-out moment in the movie is hers: when Shahid arrives to fetch her back to home and hearth from a self-imposed exile, she refuses at first, and then says, eyes full of unshed tears, aati hoon. It's not just for that moment, but a lifetime.

Jab We Met looks all set to be the young love movie of this year.