By: Amit KumaR Agarwal
Relationships, love and family form the crux of the plot of RARKPK. Just like Luv Ranjan's Tu Jhoothi Mein Makkar, earlier in the year (we even have heroine's lust-at-first-sight for hero's love-at-first-sight). Budgeted almost in the same bracket with TJMM which had the rival youth icon, Ranbir Kapoor in the lead - the template is also almost the same - two families and complexities of the love-birds settling in.
Rocky Randhawa (Ranveer Singh) is boisterous munda of a well established punjabi family. Rani Chatterjee (Alia Bhatt) is the proverbial Bengali beauty, a top-TV host. Rocky lives with his parents
(Aamir Bashir and Kshitee Jog), grandparents (Dharmendra and Jaya
Bachchan) and a sister, Gayatri (Anjali Anand), while Rani’s family has her
parents (Tota Roy Choudhury and Churni Ganguly) and grandmother, Jamini
Chatterjee (Shabana Azmi).
Rocky gets to know about his grandfather's love-affair with Rani's grandmother. In his quest to find the grandma, he hooks up with the grand-daughter, Rani. For Rani it is lust-at-first-sight, but for Rocky, it is love-at-first-sight.
The cultural and intellectual differences between
Rocky and Rani and their respective families, make the two swap places to convince
their families about their prem-kahani.
The best test for any creative-form is the longevity and recall of the audiences. Ironically, the film's high points are when the love-birds both, Rocky and Rani and their dada-dadi soak in the golden melodies of yesteryears, some more than 60-year old. Still so fresh and soothing to hear.
Will the audiences remember RARKPK after 60 weeks?
While Ranveer and Alia are first-rate. Dharmendra is wasted in an ill-etched character. The real hero of the film is the antagonist Jaya Bachchan, she breaks her goody image with a bravura performance. She even mouths the famous Big B dialogue from Johar's previous, K3G - Keh Diya toh bas Keh Diya with the signature tune playing.
The high-points in the movie are far apart. The best is Ranveer's and Tota's recreation of Dola Re or Ranveer's breakdown, ironically, of how being judgemental about things is also being judgemental.
Karan Johar was firmly in saddle in his last film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, but here he falters mostly because of the excessive length of the film and not giving subtle-treatment required for such a sensitive subject.
In the end, a grossly average fare that fails to live up to the mammoth expectations that come with the K Jo tag!