Subhash K Jha speaks about Haal-E-Dil 
By Subhash K. Jha, June 23, 2008 - 11:37 IST
A bespectacled 'serious' girl on a rigged rail yatra. She seems to have borrowed her demeanor from Kajol in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Na Ho. You know, studious bookish and grumpy…It takes the exuberant won't-take-no-for-an-answer stranger on the train played by newcomer Nakuul Mehta to draw the prissy missy out of her frigid emotionalism. This girl is waiting to be liberated. Kaaton se khinch key yeh aanchal.
Enter our modern day Raju Guide with more on his mind than melodious music (considering the soporific quality of the songs, he has no choice). He thinks babbling non-stop is a symptom of joie de vivre. Just because extra-volubility suited Kareena in Jab We Met. I tell you! Helping the couple to come together is a train compartment filled with stereotypes, including one over-acting Bengali housewife (Bharti Achrekar), a kindly ticket collector (who behaves as if he just saw Imtiaz Ali's Jab We Met and of course, Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Ltd and learnt his etiquettes in station mastery from them), dancing-singing beggars(in newly -stitched ghagra-cholis). And yes, Ajay Devgan and Kajol who clap a few beats at a railway platform and beat a hasty retreat. So, I am afraid, should we. Before we swear off romantic film forever. This tedious transparently derivate romance chugs on and on with no respite in sight. The songs are like opium for the snoring masses. Dope in drag.
As some relief in this snail rail trail, in flashbacks newcomer Adhyayan Suman shows up as the bespectacled girl's college lover-boy. He has a sweet sincere presence and should have had more to do in this loco-motivated talkathon shot most on the train parked at Kamalistan studios. The least you do in a travel film is to make the transportation and the locations look authentic. Director Anil Devgan makes this one purely an exercise in self-indulgence for matronly spinsters who still think Prince Charming is a artificially exhilarated dude in designer togs giving everyone in the compartment and in the audience a gala time.
Or so he'd like to believe.
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Who is the lead in Haal-e-Dil? Nakuul and Adhyayan talk
