Movie - Break Ke Baad

Actors - Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone & Others

Director - Danish Aslam

Dear Mr. Aslam, Great effort! I loved your movie. I really did. Until we reached the climax, at which point I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why did u have to ruin a perfectly relatable story with an outrageously unrealistic end, is beyond me. I understand your urge to cater to the sticklers that we are for happy fairy tale endings. But this was just way too ridiculous!

‘Break ke Baad’ is about the quintessential ‘career versus love’ dilemma. Would you sacrifice your dreams for the person you love? There is no straightforward answer to this question. It is an oft- debated issue, which doesn’t need any debating because the answer lies in the individual, and his/her priorities in life. Plus, its one of those things where you don’t know how you would react until it happens to you and you find yourself in that situation.

The movie deftly explores this predicament through two very interesting and very contrasting characters played by Imran Khan and Deepika Padukone. Deepika is feisty, ambitious, and a never- say- die go- getter! Imran is polite, unambitious, laidback, to some extent submissive, and a diehard romantic. They have loved each other since forever, and all seems well until Imran’s dreams come in the way of Deepika’s aspirations. The characters are largely relatable. Deepika might find herself fewer sympathizers, but its not difficult to understand why she is doing what she is doing. You could sympathise wth Imran and his heartache as much as you could relate to Deepika’s desire to fulfill her most cherished dream. Director Danish Aslam makes a promising debut, and takes us through the conflict between the two characters, the break-up, the attempt at reconciliation (in the process of which Imran finally finds himself and what it is that he is meant to do in life) and the final reunion. That is where the movie topples and tumbles straight into an abyss. This is a story well- told. There are lots of funny scenes, and very few tacky dialogues (there is one in the very beginning where Imran looking at the mirror and playing out a conversation he wants to have with Deepika later, calls himself a ‘sexy son-of-a-bitch’. I have never cringed at a dialogue as much as I did when I heard that from Imran’s mouth. But if you overlook that, the rest is pretty decent).

What disappoints the most in this movie is the way it ends. I, and I am sure many many more, would have been more than happy if Deepika and Imran decided to go their separate ways because though they love each other and care for each other, they want different things in life; their priorities are different. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that! They don’t have to be together just so we could leave the cinema hall with a smile thinking life is a fairy tale. Because it isn’t. It is high time Indian directors stop fantasizing about true love and stop giving youngsters false hopes and dreams. Because when the latter realize that life is not a bed of roses, that all love stories DO NOT have a happy ending, their bubble will burst and they will come crashing down to earth and that will hurt. A lot. I had the same problem with Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Believe me. 99 out of a 100 times, your best friend is not going to fall in love with you the way you did. He is going to fall in love with someone else and you are going to have to move on. That’s reality. I guess the argument against that is that Jaane Tu… was sort of a spoof and that it had to end that way because of that very reason. Maybe. I don’t mean to be cynical. In fact, I myself am a hopeless romantic. And I love romantic comedies. But somewhere down the line, I realised that most of them are feeding you truckloads of bullshit. Which is fine, occasionally. Its escapist cinema. It could be fun. But, sometimes, when its done blatantly and shamelessly as in this movie, it just gets on your nerves.

Regarding performances, Deepika has done well (although I think she has a lot of untapped potential. At the moment I am just glad that she is fast losing her horrible accent!), while Imran has lots to learn. But he has an affable and endearing persona that is very hard to dislike, despite the shoddy acting. I would recommend the movie for the funny dialogues, and for the good story- telling. Not a bad directorial debut. Although I do hope that by the time Danish Aslam makes his next film, he will have better sensibilities.