Raabta

Happy-go-lucky banker Shiv (Sushant Singh Rajput) and his friend Raghav (Varun Sharma) move to Budapest for work and spend time having as much fun as possible till Shiv runs into chocolatier Saira (Kriti Sanon) and promptly falls in love with her. Saira too seems to like him in the very first meeting and the lovebirds decide to tie the knot without much ado. However, darkness soon enters their life in the form of Zak Merchant (Jim Sarbh), an eccentric and sinister millionaire, who too seems to have the hots for Saira and soon, it is established that the trio have a past life connection.

Reincarnation works best when an individual demonstrates an irrepressible desire to redress a tragedy where innocent people are killed and deceived for no fault of their own. But in Raabta, this so-called misfortune is prompted by a fickle-minded girl's inability to pick between two guys. Dinesh Vijan's unintended allegory on 'the grass is always greener on the other side' syndrome, flitting between rom-com to rebirth, could not be more bizarre.

Unfulfilled love is the reason behind most reincarnation films in Bollywood. The problem with such films is transitioning from one time zone to another and striking a balance between both worlds. That's exactly where debutante director Dinesh Vijan falters. An essentially simple tale of love grows too distracted to stir the heart; its two parallel stories separated by centuries and an aesthetic disparity hardly transforms on screen.

Meet the comet-crossed lovers - Shiv (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Saira (Kriti Sanon). He is a banker who has to tell audiences that he is one because more than mathematics he is busy working on building and having a chemistry with the chocolateir heroine who is as dull as her shop's name which is "Love is Sweet". The setting is the picturesque Budapest which gives Shiv and filmmaker Dinesh Vijan enough reasons to ensure that he is never actually in office and only out to first flirt, then woo and finally romance Saira.

Some questions arise after Raabta has been seen, chief amongst which is one that comes up every time Bollywood tries, and fails, to do a cracking romance. Why is Bollywood incapable of pulling off a full-length film with a pair of lovers connecting, pulling apart, coming together? Sometimes, in the pursuit of true love, a life-time can be too little. Here we spend two and a half hours with Shiv (Sushant Singh Rajput), Saira (Kriti Sanon) and Zak (Jim Sarbh), and it seems endless, simply because after a nice start, the film goes downhill shockingly rapidly. And stays there.

Let's get this question out of the way right at the start: Raabta is not particularly a copy of the Tollywood hit Magadheera. If you have been following news around the week's new Hindi film release, you will know that Telugu producer Allu Aravind had sent a legal notice to the makers of Raabta on seeing their trailer, alleging plagiarism of his 2009 venture directed by S.S. Rajamouli, starring Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal.

The most common advice writers get is: "Show, don't tell." It means that a storyteller is expected to paint a picture as opposed to describing things mechanically. Raabta spends a lot of time telling you things, and not nearly enough in making them seem believable. So we're told that Shiv (Singh Rajput) is a ladykiller. But the next girl he lays eyes on, Saira (Sanon), will kill his long streak. She talks to herself in the mirror and tells us, by its way, that she's been experiencing weird tribal nightmares.

Some enthusiasm in a screenplay can inspire as much a rousing good time, as much as our instinctual desire to sneer at the implausibility of the story. But if it gets stalled by a sense of ambition that seems unmatched, there is the serious issue of our interest dipping. Completely. Director Dinesh Vijan tries to recreate the age-old theme of reincarnation in his directorial debut Raabta and, perhaps, consciously attempts to give it a new spin. But how different can his source material be?

Reincarnation is still a sought-after theme for the Hindi film industry despite its fondness for modern clothes, gadgets and locations. Commercially successful films and shows like Baahubali and Game Of Thrones also influence choices. Sometimes, then, filmmakers appear stuck in a dilemma. Debutant director Dinesh Vijan is probably one of them.

She calls herself a firecracker. He introduces himself as a ladykiller. Few Hindi films are as upfront and unapologetic about narcissism, and Raabta gives us a pair of fit young leads falling all over each other, giddy on their own vanity. He wears vests without sleeves, she wears shirts that say "quinoa & kale", as if to explain away her washboard midriff, and makes faces as she walks, as if slyly taking selfies when we aren't looking. He preens a lot, tightening his pecs and flaunting his abs, leading her to nickname him 'badan.' That might be a first.