From Bollywood to New York, a Tale of Lovers Lost and Found
By ANITA GATES
Bollywood musicals definitely have their charms. After you’ve been exposed to a few, it’s easy to wonder why the typical American musical number has only one setting and no costume changes.
Shirish Kunder’s “Jaan-E-Mann” transports its Indian characters to
New York. This leads to, among other things, a shopping trip at Columbus Circle and a comic fight scene (involving a male character in drag) across from the Times Square Sephora.The cultural juxtaposition is inherently amusing, especially when the producers make unexpected choices to illustrate American culture. (The vehicle parked in the driveway of the heroine’s parents’ tasteful suburban mansion? A white Hummer limo.) It is also fun to see the Bollywood formula applied to a college rock concert, complete with swaying cigarette lighters.
“Jaan-E-Mann” (the title means “beloved”) has many of its genre’s shortcomings, including a shaky hold on the line between farce and stupidity and a soapy, melodramatic denouement. But it also has personable stars.
Preity Zinta, who could be Katie Holmes’s older half-sister from Delhi, plays Piya, a beauty who marries her college boyfriend, Suhaan (Salman Khan), an arrogant aspiring rock star. When he seems to choose his career over her, Piya leaves. Akshay Kumar is Agastya, a hopeless geek from their college days who has grown up to be an astronaut.
Years after graduation, Agastya, who has always adored Piya, looks her up, which gives Suhaan an idea. If Agastya can win and marry Piya, Suhaan won’t have to pay alimony. The two men head for New York, where Piya now lives. Complications and changes of heart follow.
Unfortunately, the subtitles are sloppy, and not just in terms of typographical errors. English subtitles often appear when the characters are speaking English; at other times, when characters are speaking Hindi at length, there are no subtitles at all.
Still, there is something good-natured about “Jaan-E-Mann” that makes it possible to forgive its many faults — even the film’s opening, a “2001: A Space Odyssey” ripoff with a space station gliding through the cosmos to the tune of the “Blue Danube” Waltz.
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