U, Me Aur Hum is for all of us!

When I sat back to watch U Me Aur Hum and saw those beautiful lines on love springing up the screen in the background of the blue sky, I reconciled with myself that this is going to be one of those mushy romances in the Chopra- Johar style that Kajol has been associated with in the past. Mushy romance it is to start with, but Ajay Devgan, the director along with the assistance of his scenarists (Robin Bhatt, Akash Khurana and another credited with the screenplay and Ashwini Dheer credited with dialogues) manages to steer the movie into a different territory as it progresses. U, Me Aur Hum is the story of Ajay (Ajay Devgan), a rich psychiatrist and Pia (Kajol), a waitress on a luxury cruise on which Ajay is holidaying with his friends- Nikhil (Sumeet Raghavan, brilliant) and Tina (Divya Dutta, typecast), doctor couple who are constantly fighting with each other; and Vicky (Karan Khanna, passable) and Natasha (Isha Sharvani, No comments!)- jeweler and dancer respectively looking forward to get married. They eat, drink and make merry while Ajay keeps flirting with the girls till he falls head over heels in love with Pia. He tries out every rule in and out of the book to woo her and she does fall for him. Confusion follows confession and Pia comes back to get married to Ajay. Life is all rosy for both of them till the day when Ajay discovers that Pia is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Pia starts losing memory- she forgets her anniversary, she forgets her home, she forgets her husband’s name and phone number- and it gets into a major problem when she puts her baby in the bathtub and forgets to turn off the tap. Ajay is broken and confused and decides to leave Pia at the care centre. The rest of the film is about the course that their lives take hereafter. Ajay Devgan makes an impressive debut as a film maker. It is not that U, Me Aur Hum is as perfect as perfect can be. It does have its flaws, like an abrupt start, a dragging second half and a few scenes and dialogues that are completely out of place. However, the playfulness of the first half and the sensitivity of the second half has been handled deftly by Ajay and one should give due credit for his debut as director. Ajay has also been credited with the story but it is heavily inspired by “The Notebook”. The script is powerful and cohesive. The dialogues are beautiful. The use of the same word throughout a lengthy piece of dialogue has been resorted to at least 5 times to good effect. Technically, the movie is brilliant. Excellent camera work and larger than life production design are a treat to the eyes. Editing could have been sharper. Vishal Bharadwaj comes up with an album that is so unlike his kind of songs and he impresses with all the songs. Monty Sharma’s background score is commendable. Kajol is as effervescent and lively as ever. However, her spontaneity gets overshadowed by Devgan’s intensity throughout the film. Yes, and I mean it. This is one of those rare films where Kajol’s performance is superceded by that of the leading man who in this case is her husband himself. It is a treat watching Ajay play the flirtatious doctor in the first half to the same effect as that of the brooding and confused husband in the second. U, Me Aur Hum might not work completely as a film but there are moments that are unique to this film and such moments are quite a few in number making one forget the flaws! The gentle hints that Devgan drops during the first half on Pia’s disease- she serving tequilas instead of vodka or turning up for salsa at 7 instead of 6; the constant bickering between Nikhil and Tina as opposed to the sugary romantic life of Ajay and Pia and the best of the lot is when Ajay is with his friends at the bar telling them how he watched Ek Duje Ke Liye 11 times and how he used to love “Hum bane, tum bane” and how he thinks the song is so fake since his book of psychiatry says human nature is such that everyone cares only for that person and that is the self- defense mechanism that humans are endowed with and you along with the other characters in the frame realize how deeply Pia’s separation has affected him… Sequences like these are what make U, Me Aur Hum special and that is why I recommend it to all!