Chalte Chalte

I quite like this film. It seems superficially like Saathiya but is also quite different. Shahrukh plays a self made small time transport business owner and is a very down to earth character. He meets a rich high society girl, played by Rani, and falls for her. He "misplaces" her and then after much searching finds her only to be told she is marrying an old friend in Greece. So off to Greece we go and by the end of the trip she is convinced she loves this man - she never did profess to love her childhood friend. They marry and then the story takes us into an inside look at the marriage between two opposites. Sparks fly, fights are followed by reconciliations until there is an irreconcilable misunderstanding over money and a major rift occurs. She goes off to her family, and he is left to pine... There is an inevitable happy ending, but do things resolve themselves as expected? Not really, and this is where I find Chalte Chalte most endearing. It is quite usual to show "reformed" characters, ideal solutions, in Hindi cinema. Chalte Chalte tells us that in relationships one must accept one's partner for what he or she is and not expect that they will magically be altered or reformed to fit our idealized version.

I found SRK's portrayal of Raj the transport biz owner very authentic. His romancing Priya (Rani) was sweet and never very over the top - yes I even liked the hokey feel of Gumshuda, and Suno Na Suno Na was divine in sound and picturization. The same old romantic dude? Perhaps, but much more vulnerable and real this time around. I liked his drunk act, his trashing the apartment. The one OTT moment was at the airport. Rani was fabulous as Priya, stunning in looks and in her conflicts with Raj. This movie was when I first felt that she was a serious actress. Taube Tumahre yeh Ishare - that was one sweet love ballad. Lillette Dubey was a little OTT but I like her so that was no big deal.

The music was good, and Prem Nagariya reminded me so much of Aisa Des hai mera (Veer Zaara) - but it came before!! Overall - I gave Chalte Chalte an 8 because I liked the story, the music, the acting and most of all the reality that it is hard for human beings to change what is their true nature.

What can I say about Chalte Chalte?

The cast was excellent as were their portrayal of the individual characters, with Rani shining out the most. She has come a long way from her days in Ghulam, and with her last few performances, she is sure to take the place that Kajol held. She looks classic, acts flawlessly in both emotional and comedic scenes and seems natural. SRK, what is there to say about him hat has not already been said - he is on par with his other performances.

The story is entertaining and patchily scripted with a few flaws and surprises. I have to say that I expected a lot out of this movie, but inevitably it was a concatenation of a other bollywood movies with storylines being nicked from movies such as Saathiya, DDLJ and Hum Tumhare Hai Sanam. Never the less, the songs were good, direction was professional and it was good to see other locations apart from Switzerland.

I had to issues with this though: 1 - why did they not use Johnny Lever to his full potential?

2 - why is it necessary to have a happy ending? Priyas own words were: even though you love each other it is sometimes not possible for a couple to be together. This is a way of live. With their excellent portrayal of married couple squabbles, it was unjust to say that they would forget everything and go back to being a happy couple? IF they had separated as couples do, it would have being a truly realistic movie and a step for bollywood in acknowledging that all things are not lubby-dubby.

Chalte Chalte is no doubt a fully fledged Bollywood commercial venture with top stars, exotic foreign locations, expensive sets, colourful dances and melodious songs but at the same time it's a daring experiment in many ways. First of all, the story defies the set rules of development and plot construction: the boy and girl get married very early in the story and seemingly there is no emminent danger to their "living happily ever after" and at a time when you are expecting some external factors to pop up and spoil their happy marriage, the talented writer manages to create an effective and convincing internal conflict to keep the story within its logical confines. Secondly, the flash-back technique is used very intelligently: not merely for the sake of breaking the linear order of events, but to release the desired information in well calculated bits and pieces, inserted at the most appropriate places. Thirdly, the minor characters are so fully developed and so painstakingly dealt with that it reminds you of the great masters of characterisation in the Russian classics. It's a common observation in the Bollywood movies that the hero's friends or the heroine's female friends never match them in personality, performance or screen presence. The reason being two-fold: you can not financially afford to hire a good actor for a minor role and big stars are not available for minor roles anyway. The producer of Chalte Chalte however has manage to tackle this problem very successfully. He has hired a whole bunch of fresh faces...God knows from where?...and made them do exactly what was required. For the first time perhaps the status of a hero's minor friend has risen above an extra boy.

Finally I should pay tribute to Johny Leaver, who in his mellow role of a failed lover, has busted his own cliche of a jabbering clown.

ShahRukh Khan has come a long way from the "Bazigar" mold, I mean the gory scenes with histrionics that him dying in his mothers lap. Here he is a Truck driver who stalks a rich Greek born Indian lassie played by the round faced and raspy voiced Rani Mukherjee who is fresh form the throngs of a similar themed movie "Saathiya"; when she replaced Ash Rai. So Rani is in her native domain so to speak and she is even getting good at these roles depicting a newly married with better expectations and duelling to get it. The fast dialog helps to forefront the couple that have time to fight over mundane things that hard working couple would not have time for. The truck driver character fits Sharukh like a Glove, he is more believable than a Lover caught between two women (Devdas). He has flair for few things like when he erupts unexpectedly like a volcano than the emotional pleadings. A good story could be told well without innately intrusive comics and foreign locations, which have become integral part of the Hindi Movies these days. Some of the best movies like "Mr&Mrs Iyer", "Guide", did not have foreign locations or innately intrusive comics. This paranoia that is prevailing among the Filmmakers that the audience is starved for a comedy interludes has to stop. Other than few flaws I enjoyed this movie and one of the few movies I sincerely feel that Sharukh Khan has given his true potential instead of his head shaking histrionics that makes his audience shriek but does nothing to the coffers in the box office nor the audience whose choice and aesthetics is changing and it is changing for the better.

Priya's (Rani Muherjee) performance as a controlling, dominating, "Nit picking" "Neat freak" wife was excellent +! Raj's(Shahrukh Khan)performance as a hard worker, responsible, faithful and romantic husband was Outstanding! Music, songs and dances were beautiful, lively and sexy. They looked like a lovely couple. They loved each other very much and were faithful to each other but it appeared that there were personality conflicts, and family class differences between them because Priya was from a upper class family and Raj was from a middle class family. According to Priya's family, Sameer was the ideal husband for pry, but Priya chose Raj as her husband.

Priya's aunt interfered in Priya's and Raj's marriage. She did not approve Priya's new friends whom she had met through Raj. She also did not approve Priya's life style and believed Priya was not leading a life style that her family had dreamed and had hoped for her.

Raj was positively proud of his hard work and his accomplishments as a business man. Knowing that how Priya's family felt about him, he felt inferior when he was around Priya's family especially aroungd Aunt Anna and Sameer as Sameer was the person Priya's parents had chosen for her as an ideal husband.

Priya did not compliment Raj in a party that was hosted by Sameer although she complimented Sameer. Feeling inferior and insecure, Raj had to ask a waiter about his suit and Watch while Priya was dancing with Sameer.

At home, Priya refused to eat dinner after Raj had complimented her cooking. She also refused to hug him after he had brought her flowers and vegetables and had washed the dishes after coming home working all day while Priya was a home maker.

Raj ran into financial difficulties with his business. He did not approach his father asking for help. He did not go to her relatives or friends asking for help. Priya did not approach her father for help. She did not go to her relatives and friends either. She went to Smaeer asking for help. He gave her 2.5 million rupees as a favior. Priya falsified to Raj about where she received the funds. When Raj had found out about from whom she got the money from, the hell broke loose. Later, Sameer made it look like only a loan.

Although Priya had admitted to Sameer it was wrong for her to accept money from Sameer, she never appolagized to Raj for accepting the money.

No one in the world is perfect. There are no perfect marriages in the whole world. Raj took all the blames. He fell on his keens and publicly appoligized to Priya, Aunt Anna and Sameer for every problems in their marriage.

Raj is a hard worker, family type of person, he loved Priya very very much and was a faithful husband to her.

After considering the type of person Raj is and if some like Raj was to be my husband, I would have eaten my dinner with him. I would have greeted him at the door with a hug or kiss when he had arrived with vegetables and flowers. I would not have nagged him every night about petty things until he had exploded. As a home maker, I would have put away his shoes and would have hung up his jacket after he had returned home from a hard day of work. I would have appoligized for being a nagging wife. I would have apolagized for requesting and accepting money from Sameer because it takes at least two to tangle