Covering Bollywood and the Hindi Cinema

Film Critic Subhash K Jha lavishes praise on Aziz Mirza’s Kismet Konnection and here are some excerpts from  his review:


In one of the gloriously gossamer moments in the film, the 'hero', a harassed working-class entity and the kind of bereft soul you would immediately recognize if you've grown up watching Aziz Mirza's working-class romances, with one of his shoes in hand looks up in the sky and says with a stifled sob, "I give up."

Fortunately God isn't listening when Raj Malhotra wants out. Imagine what we would do if the working-class hero stumbled and fell. Kismat Konnection is one of the sweetest and most endearing romantic comedies in recent times.

Its beauty and charm lie in its truthful and transparent depiction of life on the green but thirty side of the lawn. Mirza sprinkles the frames with soft satiny whispering waves of undulating emotions. There are many moments in this boy-meets-girl saga that spread a warm sunshine across your heart.

This time it's more about the mystery than the chemistry. Those invisible forces that guide the romantic spirit from one heart into another infusing two people with a collective ecstasy….that's the world, which the two protagonists in the film inhabit. This one is not about villains and goblins and not about over-groomed mannequins and under-dressed dolls. For Kismat Konnection the mellow-toned maneuvers of Mirza move into the metropolitan milieu and mores of Toronto.


Shahid Kapoor is extremely adept at expressing hurt. And he gets many opportunities to do so. From the moment when he pleads with God to stop tormenting him to the time he realizes he has wronged the golden-hearted girl who trusted him to create a miniature haven in the concrete jungle, Shahid infuses a disarming verve to portrait of an artiste as an angst-laden man.

As for Vidya Balan, she exudes such positivity in that voice and smile of hers, she reminds us of the early Juhi Chawla who, by the way, makes a very unconvincing cameo appearance in this film as a goofy crystal-ball gazer.

What keeps the love-interest interesting are the details that go into preserving the core of simplicity in the man-woman relationship. The supporting cast is mildly interesting. But it's the Kapoor-Balan axis that keeps us vigorously engrossed even when the narration loses virility in parts. But the story never sags. Never stops walking tall.