Film review: Amazing cinematography and a versatile Kajol.....

Banner: Devgan Entertainment Software Ltd.
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Karan Khanna, Isha Sharwani, Sumeet
Raghavan, Rituparn,Sengupta, Sarika,Divya Dutta
Direction: Ajay Devgan
Production: Ajay Devgan
Music: Vishal Bharadwaj

U Me Aur Hum marks the directorial debut of Ajay Devgan who comes in this year with a bad start at the box office with movies such as ‘Halla Bol’ and ‘Sunday ‘not faring too well. Much seems to be riding on this film too as one sees the Kajol-Ajay, husband-wife pair after a very long time. Ajay Devgan who is more known for his action packed films be it a ‘Gangajal ‘or ‘Apharan’ explores the romance genre with his debut film. So what’s in store with U Me Aur Hum? Does the film truly live up to being a truly romantic film on soul mates?

The film takes off with Ajay (Ajay Devgan )a renowned psychiatrist on a cruise with a bunch of friends on a cruise with his friends -- Nikhil [Sumeet Raghavan] and Reena [Divya Dutta], who are unhappily married and are looking forward to a divorce, Vicky [Karan Khanna] and Natasha [Isha Sharwani], who are seeing each other and plan to get married once they can dance the salsa together. Ajay comes across Pia( Kajol) a bartender and takes a couple of drinks to admit his feelings.

Ajay works day and night to win over Pia by understanding her likes, learning Salsa etc. The two eventually get married and with every marriage, its share of problems too creep in the form of Alzheimer’s.

To start off with, U Me Aur Hum has its moment s of brilliance mostly in terms of cinematography and performances. U Me Aur Hum lacks majorly in its storytelling, though the basic concept of the film is a very good one, the loose screenplay and the slow build up of events really affects the film. The first half of the film fails to create that much hyped romantic impact and is all the more dragging with the silly jokes mostly from Karan Khanna and major portions of the film are wasted in cliché thoughts of impressing a girl by learning salsa etc.

Though a lot has been said about U, Me Aur Hum being inspired from Hollywood films such as ‘Notebook’ and ‘Iris’ , Ajay Devgan has done a great job of adapting it to Indian standards. But there is a little glitch here, Ajay fails to make the romance germinate within you.

The film indeed picks up during the 2nd half and is much better and relevant in comparison to the earlier portions. The screenplay team of Robin Bhatt, Sutanu Gupta and Akarsh Khurana fail to keep the viewer glued. The time duration of the film also hampers it quite a bit.

The true winner of the film is Aseem Bajaj’s cinematography. He excels in almost every scene and credit only goes to Ajay for his visual sense. The silhouettes, the close ups, the 2 shot compositions are just brilliant. Aseem Bajaj just tends to draw so much attention for his work and takes you on a complete scenic ride.

On the performance front without any doubt the film truly belongs to Kajol who proves it once again that she is one of India’s finest talents. More than the usual chirpy smile sequences and Naach-Gaana she expresses well in states of complete stillness and perplexities such as the observation of the lizard on the wall. Even the pregnant Kajol skipping to lose weight in a state of Alzeheimer’s really hits you. Ajay Devgan too does well but it’s very obvious that Ajay excels more in direction. The best from Ajay comes towards the climax of the film where he explodes in an attempt to remind an Alzheimer struck Kajol about his identity.

Divya Dutta and Sumeet Raghavan are impressive. Karan Khanna and Isha Sharwani are totally wasted. Karan Khanna annoys with his constant PJ’s. Sachin Khedekar is ok. Aditya Rajput and Hazel are hardly there.

The music of the film is not the finest around and tracks like ‘Saiyaan’ just interrupt with the flow of events. ‘Jee Lee’ and the title track leave an impact. On the whole, U Me Aur Hum gets a little dragging primarily in the first half and is a little loose on its screenplay. In any case the film is worth watching for its splendid Cinematography and Kajol’s first rate performance. Also looks like Ajay Devgan the director has arrived.