adityad

Let me start by saying that I watch less than 5 "bollywood" movies a year. So my perspective comes from one of an Indian-American who is familiar with the culture but not immersed. I had seen Lagaan, Swades and enjoyed both thoroughly. So going into Jodhaa-Akbar, I had high expectations. Unfortunately they might have been too high.

The positives: The movie looks stunning. On par or better than any Hollywood epic. The actors are generally good (and obviously very good looking) and the dialogue is good. The songs themselves were decent although there were only 3-4.

The negatives: I didn't go in expecting to see an accurate historical portrayal or anything even close. I went in expecting to be entertained. So the fact that most of the story never happened is irrelevant. The biggest problem was that the movie didn't know what it wanted to be. Was it a history lesson? was it a love story? The movie dragged and the segues between the love story and the story of Akbar's rule were just awkward. At no point do I feel that Jodhaa and Akbar gave a damn about each other. Akbar feels like an angst filled teen and Jodhaa has 2 emotions: happy and angry/sad. Too many scenes that felt like they were just praising Akbar as opposed to making us actually think of Akbar as great.

I really wish they had dropped the entire subplot with Sujamal/Sharifuddin and concentrated on Akbar trying to woo Jodhaa and Jodhaa liking Akbar. And the movie dragged for ever.

I can't believe I asked for romance in a bollywood flick :)

Hmmm I watched this movie on a recommendation. To be fair, I don't like most bollywood films.

So what did i like? The acting was good. Both the lead actors are very charming, and do a good job.

The humor worked pretty well. The dialog/script was pretty good. Rupa's character and the acting was especially good.

I also liked that this was a rather unique heroine and not cookie cutter.

The supporting characters were very good (the 2 kids, raju, anita)

What did I not like?

• Maybe it's a cultural thing that I missed but why does the lead male always do very Stalkerish things when "pursuing"? It really bugged me.

• Rahul/Rahul's mother are too evil. Rahul was actually a pretty well written character right until his last scene.

• Definitely dragged in the second half.

• The whole Anand not liking her and then she not liking him was one too many.

• The suspension of disbelief is still a little too high.

Like an Altman film or the opening scene in Godfather, Mira Nair drops us right into the middle of the Verma clan with barely an introduction. Many things are going on and Nair loves to play the matchmaker, giving every character a love story. The film is flawed because the major story line barely registers and sometimes the acting seems forced and over the top(Aditi, PK Dubey). What comes through is a feeling of joy and bliss and heartache. The film looks great(the cinematographer deserves major praise) and the music is excellent throughout. Naseeruddin Shah(Lalit Verma) is excellent. From a social standpoint, Nair shows the dichotomy of India. The haves and the have nots. This film is in many ways an accurate portrayal of upper middle class India. It helps that the characters speak a wonderful mix of English, Hindi and Punjabi. You see a foreign film without always having to look down at the subtitles. Another merit for this film was that it was not insulting to Indian culture like so many recent films:(the guru, American desi).