Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha

Atul Agnihotri has done an excellent job for a directorial debut. The first half is brilliant with a completely fresh appeal to it. Salman and Preity's relationship is illustrated beautifully. It is the perfect modern, youthful, romantic marriage. The second half has mostly Bhumika and Salman.

Their relationship doesn't make sense. If the audience is supposed to believe that their relationship is based on the heart-thing (you'll see what I'm talking about when you watch the film), that's really dumb. Preity, as always, delivers a marvelous performance. Bhumika, unsurprisingly, is her bland self. Salman, however, is outstanding. His acting has improved by a quantum leap! His scenes are jaw-dropping well-acted. For the first ten months of 2004, I feel he deserves the best actor award for this movie. I've never seen such a talented Salman before. A.R. Rehman gives lovely, melodic tunes, and beautiful background music. Himesh Reshammiya's "Balle Balle" is a nice foot-tapping song.

There are no glaring problems with this film, it just didn't quite cut it for me. The story is not the most creative thing imaginable, and is very predictable. This alone is true of many good movies though. Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha stumbles by presenting the story poorly... really I think better editing could have helped this film a lot. There are some downright bizarre directorial decisions, too, like a very ill conceived gay character who appears two thirds of the way into the film for basically no reason at all. The film lingers where it could pick up the pace, and some important scenes could be expanded a bit more. I can't really fault any of the acting, although Salman Khan's portrayal of grief gets a little flat and tiresome. Some of the cinematography could have been thought through a little more, in my opinion.

The film has a few emotional high points, but overall is not worth the ride.

Rishabh (Salman Khan) and Pari (Preity Zinta) have a deeply happy, loving marriage until Pari is killed in an accident. At her death, she becomes connected to a young woman (Dhani, played by Bhumika Chawla) in a real and tangible way. Unaware of the connection between them, Rishabh and Dhani meet. Dhani immediately falls in love with him, and Rishabh, though attracted, fights against it, as he'd rather live in the past with Pari. When the connection is discovered, their lives will be changed.

This is a sweet, emotional drama, celebrating the depth of true love. Khan has good chemistry with both Zinta and Chawla, and all play their parts well. Helen plays Dhani's grandmother and is, as always, a delight. The music is nice, but the choreography is below average. Overall, despite a resolution I found to be too quick, this is an excellent film.

Bhoomika Chawla and Preity Zinta provided sweet eye-candy in this movie, and there were a number of colourful dance sequences which were quite pretty, but overall I am surprised by the high rating the few voters have given it so far. It would be one of the weaker efforts I have seen this year, and I suppose my main criticism would be the quality of the acting. Apart from the two female leads, a lot of the other acting was not as good as it should have been, and especially a number of the supporting cast were quite wooden at times. Dhani's grandma was quite hammy at times, as were some of Rishab's work colleagues, and even Rishab himself was not as well played as I have seen Salman Khan before, in "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi" for example. Some of his tearful bedside scenes were just a little hard to watch, not because of the pathos but because it wasn't believable. I did enjoy moments of the film, and the dance sequence in the nightclub was very hot, but on the whole I have seen better.

Atul Agnihotri's Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha could and would have been a good film if the story had not taken this entire turn lifted from Return to Me. The film's first half is just fun to watch. It is simple, lovely and we are introduced to a nice couple played by Salman Khan and Preity Zinta. This part is heartwarming, the story follows the couple's ordinary but enjoyable life. What makes this part particularly entertaining is the presence of the marvelous Preity Zinta, who plays a young doctor named Pari and Salman Khan's wife. Zinta is as natural and likable as always and she plays her role with conviction and style in a way that when she's on-screen, nothing else matters. But then the movie takes a drastic dramatic turn, and instead of Zinta we are left with her heart and with a Bhoomika Chawla, who plays one of her heart patients. Not only is it unoriginal, it's terribly clichéd. The story becomes awfully predictable, uninspiring and melodramatic. Nothing against Bhoomika Chawla, who was pretty good in the previous year's Tere Naam, but she really looks bland here and she often displays a kind of laziness in her expressions that is very tiresome, particularly when compared to the lively Preity Zinta, whom she is supposed to replace. As for Salman, he does a thoroughly good job, but again, more in the first half as the second one does let him down a bit. Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha is not a horrible movie for it has its moments. The music is nothing special but the title track, composed by master A.R. Rahman is quite nice. The final verdict is below average, not recommended, and sadly so.