Film: Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee

Producer: Baba Arts

Director: Vikram Bhatt

Cast: Dino Morea, Aftab Shivdasani, Sameer Dattani, Annuj Sawhney, Nauhid Cyrusi, Koel Puri, Nikita Anand, Anjori Alagh, Pinky Harwani, Monish Bahl, Aarti Bahl, Raj Zutshi, Rajat Bedi, Mushtaq Khan.

Rating: 2/5

Vikram Bhatt’s latest venture Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee is yet another potential story laid to waste at the altar of bad treatment and shallow imagination. A wannabe philosophical film full of wannabe characters and stars, it’s only salvation is its pace. The events in the film roll so fast that one is not left with any time to react or judge. Sadly, the film then tumbles over itself, forcing the audience not only to think and judge but also laugh in the process. And not in a good way.

The film is a story of five friends out to conquer happiness according to their own definition of the term. Rajiv Arora (Dino Morea), brother of a business tycoon thinks it is success. Monica Seth (Nauheed Cyrusi), an aspiring actress thinks it is fame. Sameer Dattani (Jai Gokhale), a wannabe politician thinks it is power and Anjori Alagh (Ishita) thinks it is money. We don’t quite know what the one left out of this race, Manish Gupta (Aftab Shivadasani), a budding writer, really thinks about it. But then we don’t really feel like asking either. The film is an exploration into how the five find the true meaning of happiness. Sounds insightful (almost spiritually!) and extremely interesting. 

The film begins on an interesting note with Aftab’s book getting an award for originality and he denying it is so. What follows is the flashback told from the point of view of Aftab who becomes a sort of narrator of the film and the idea of happiness. The first half actually makes you sit up and take notice of the rush of events happening in all the five friend’s lives. The audience is waiting for the climax after the decent build-up and that’s where everything goes haywire. Chaos becomes the order with hurried events snowballing the film towards an expected climax.

Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee is based completely on stereotypes and that is why even a fast-paced screenplay is not able to save it. The story is full of commonly held perceptions of the relationship between happiness and life, which are not all-pervading, leave alone definitive, in reality. In it’s exploration of five friends struggling to find happiness it explores high-profile careers and worlds in an extremely shoddy fashion, which reeks of a casual attitude of the makers to the film. The production values of ‘Page 3’ (Something that this film reminds you of constantly) were bad as well but the performances and story-telling made the film above-average. Besides, it had a strong and sensible message. Here, sadly there is nothing of that sort.

Performances are nothing to write home about. Aftab is as good as he can be in a limited role and unexplored character. The guy is not a store-house of talent but he is definitely not like the rest. Koel Purie is strictly OK except for her scrawny look and and nerve-grating voice. Dino Morea, Anuuj Saxena, Sameer Dattani, Nikita Anand and Nauheed Cyrusi all try hard to act. But fail, the fault not being theirs alone. Seems like Vikram Bhatt has made this film at breakneck speed and like we said earlier, a casual attitude.

Music is completely ignorable and the sound design makes you wish it were. There are terrible, over-emphasized noises and mismatched vocal decibel levels to the on-screen performers. Cinematography is average and so are costumes. The art direction is completely misguided with a poor man’s (Aftab) house looking fab and a corporate award function looking drab. Editing by Aarief Sheikh, is something else that saves the film… well kind of.

The film is basically an effort of confused presentation. Either the makers really believe in what they have portrayed (which is tough to understand due to the lack of conviction), or they just don’t know. At times it feels it is trying to please all sections of society and claim critical acclaim too. Well…

In one word. Tacky. Watch it at your own risk.