Flawed but spirited

An unconventional love story that begins in the bylanes of Benaras and ends in the streets of Delhi, Aanand L Rai’s Raanjhanaa is an intense yet lively and humour-filled film that is not without its share of flaws. But taken in its entirety, it is an eminently watchable drama bolstered by well-above-average screenplay and a clutch of extraordinary performances.

 The film begins in the manner of an average boy-meets-girl romance, but it quickly opens out to take in a wide array of social and political themes. Not all the buttons that Raanjhanaa hits yield the desired results, but its principal narrative devices work perfectly well for the most part, especially at the most crucial turns in the plot.

 The boyish Dhanush, in his first Hindi-language film, plays Kundan Shankar, a Tamil-speaking temple priest’s son who falls hopelessly in love with a Muslim professor’s daughter, Zoya Haider (Sonam Kapoor).

 The two are still in school and are barely able to comprehend the cultural and religious differences that separate their families.

 Kundan pursues Zoya with single-minded focus, gets slapped by the girl times without number, and is finally thwarted in love when a rival, a JNU student leader, enters the scene.

 When reality hits home, too many years have elapsed and too much water has rippled down the river for the twosome to be able to find any common ground.

Raanjhanaa is a story that refrains from delivering the expected love triangle twists. The first half is breezy and full of energy. The second half slows down perceptibly as the two principal characters are drawn into Delhi’s campus and street politics, which provides the backdrop to a bitter emotional tussle that culminates in a surprising finale.

 Raanjhanaa, written by Tanu Weds Manu writer Himanshu Sharma, uses the services of a bunch of actors from Asmita Theatre Group and factors a few of the latter’s politically inflected street plays into the plot to great effect.                                 

 Dhanush is an ordinary looking guy, but he is clearly an actor who is gifted with an abundance of natural talent. He seems to expend little effort in bringing alive the character of a simple-minded, small-town boy who still sees the world more with his heart than his mind.

 Raanjhanaa is by far the best deal Sonam Kapoor has ever got in her still-nascent acting career. She stands tall and measures up to the demands of the complex character that she is called upon to play.