Firstpost

The trailers promised a light, breezy film and that’s what Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is. It’s a fresh cast with Imran Khan and Kareena Kapoor playing out the lead parts on screen for the first time. They look great together, too.

The introduction of the lead characters on their respective shrink’s couches sets the tone of the romantic comedy and you instantly know what to expect from the film thereon.

Imran elicited whistles in the theatre — which was not even close to being packed — when he came on; so on the very first count, that of physical appeal, it works. He plays an extremely obedient, tight-ass architect, Rahul Kapoor, whose life is pretty much dictated by the choice of his South Mumbai parents, played ably by Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak-Shah.

Ratna makes a wonderful on-screen mom to Imran. She played Imran’s mother in his debut film Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na as well. Though, it’s a short role in Ek Main…, she excels. This is what great actors like her do – make the characters their own, despite them being as distant as they possibly can be to their real selves.

So, Rahul is constantly trying to come up trumps in his parents’ eyes and fails, the last straw being getting fired from his firm in Las Vegas. Unemployment is the worst cut of all, the ugliest truth in all of his 25 years on Earth, the end of his life.

Enter, the very vivacious, care-a-damn and, of course, stunning, Rianna Braganza (played by Kareena Kapoor) on a scooter, and he begins to loosen up. How? Throw in some comical situations, a drunken Vegas mistake, some personality changes, song and dance, and the film progresses from The End to The Beginning of Rahul’s life.

First-time director Shakun Batra has done a fabulous job with all aspects of the film. The racy dialogues are in sync with contemporary times and some ‘filmi‘ lines like “Maine dost se pyar kiya aur tumne pyar se dosti” work, too, in the ambit of the story.

Batra has a sharp sense of storytelling; though, it is not such a gripping screenplay, it does not bore at all. Calendar pop-ups of the days unfolding, along with the mood — like Day 12 Lost — are a nice touch. It’s like a fortnight on celluloid between Rahul and Rianna. It has the occasional cliché with a haggard cougar, a very sexual ex, but nothing is over the top or unrealistic in the narrative. The scene where Rahul dances to the Koi Mil Gaya track from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai seems inspired from the Tom Cruise jig in Risky Business; needless to add, Imran pales in comparison to Cruise’s moves.

Kareena is her vibrant best as Rianna and Imran is believable as Rahul; the applause here goes to the sharp writing (Ayesha Devitre and Shakun Batra) and direction (Shakun Batra). The music is not as memorable, as one would assume a Karan Johar production would boast of.

Imran’s wife, Avantika, makes a two-second cameo in the film.

The only oddity in the film is when Rianna meets Rahul, he has a bruise the size of a small country on his nose and she does not remark on it or question it at all. You couldn’t miss it if you were blind; and given her talkative, bad jokes cracking character, it is surprising she doesn’t poke fun at him.

Rating: ***