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Producer: Kunal Kohli |
MUMBAI: Break Ke Baad is a love story, a love story of self inflicted miseries, of whims and fancies!
This girl starts making her overtures to this boy with a chocolate smeared face in childhood. They grow up watching cinema, which is convenient, since the boy’s father owns a cinema hall.
The girl grows up to be a cigar smoking, beer and booze guzzling, doing weird antics Deepika Padukone, while the boy grows up to be Imran Khan. Both have been a pair for 10 years (which they never let you forget in the process of reminding each other) and are besotted with each other. But there comes a storm in the tea cup as Deepika declares that she is on her way to Australia to pursue a course in Mass Media.
The course would seem to be all practical since all she is seen doing is partying with a mass of people, mostly unknown and one morning even waking up with a stranger by her side in the same bed after one such revelry. That is when her beau, Imran, decides to drop in having promised never to give up on her.
In Australia, two more characters are added for distraction and break the monotony. Looking at them, you would not believe the media about treatment meted out to Indians in this country; these two live as if they own the country!
Our hero, Imran, good for nothing otherwise, is somehow a culinary expert and can juggle up some fancy Indian food. Soon, in league with the ‘native’ Indian duo, he owns two and half restaurants. Fed up of Imran wanting answers for all her activities, Deepika thinks of him as a hindrance in her life and seeks to break off. The break referred to in the title is this one. But there is no break, neither for Deepika nor the viewer. Imran is omnipresent and Deepika swings between yes and no.
The script has major drawback in that it has no variations, no twists and turns, no real villain in the form of either circumstances or human form. And resting the burden of carrying the film on their shoulders proves too much for Imran and Deepika. Music is no help. Dialogue is subtly witty. Direction is average.
Performance-wise, Imran is casual, no demonstration of histrionics, yet. Deepika’s character is that who enjoys life, drinking, smoking, dancing, calling her mother Sharmila Tagore by her first name and generally gallivanting; thankfully, that does not call for any acting talent at all. Of the supporting cast, Lillette Dubey is good. Sharmila Tagore has scant little to do while Navin Nischol, Shahana Goswami and Yudhistir Urs don’t contribute much.
Break Ke Baad is a love story without soul and does not touch you anywhere except your pocket.
