Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Review

This is the story of a youth caught between friendship and love and who cannot abandon either.

This movie could have been a classic. A masterpiece. It starts out that way. Strong, witty, charming. But some of the way through this movie falters. Then it keeps on dragging till the movie finally and blissfully ends.

Karan Johar hasn’t given us a good film as a director in nearly a decade and this movie doesn’t break that record. The script borrows elements from every recent romantic film, from Rockstar, to Yeh Jawani hai deewani to Johar’s own (produced) Kal ho na hoo. The characters mimic lines from kuch kuch hota hai… its slightly tacky for a director to refer to his own films. It shows how old and out of touch everyone has gotten.

Acting wise, Anushka shines though, she is pretty consistent and amazing throughout. Ranbir does his usual combining parts of his rockstar performance with the happy go lucky guy from tamaasha and yeh jawaani.

There are barely any side characters and the story stays focused on these two characters, until Ash enters the scene. She is as usual wooden and un-charming. She really tires very hard to do a good job, but her acting talent is very limited at best. But she isn’t a disaster to watch, its not cringe worthy, gets the job done of a VERY hot female, sexy character. Which is her role. Fawad khan, whose presence created such a ruckus, is barely in for 5 mins (as expected, he is listed as a cameo) and his acting is ok, nothing good or bad, just he is there for a story purpose. It could have been any other person or actor.

Moving on the music. It’s the only saving grace of the film, but the songs are not used to their full potential. But the tracks are good.

Final thoughts: Overall this film is rather uneven, it starts out strong, it gets stuck post second half and falters completely in the end.

Rating: PRE ending (last 20mins or so), I would rate this a 7. But the ending is really bad. Full movie rating is 5/10. Barely a onetime watch. Just barely…