Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri
Starring Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Pandey
Director Sameer Vidwans
Outwardly, Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri suffers a personality disorder. The first, frivolous half about a romantic writer running into a wedding planner on an international airport, and the second-half about two people’s mutual love being trammelled by their family obligations, seem like Venus and Mars on a collision course.
But here’s the thing: this Venus is not marred by its leaning in Mars, even if the two halves do seem to be incongruent initially. Somehow, it all adds up to a breezy experience, with a generous helping of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to boost the buoyancy.
Director Sameer Vidwans’ earlier partnership with Kartik Aaryan in Satyaprem Ki Katha was a roomy rom-com underlined by message on a woman’s right to her body.
Outwardly Vidwan’s second, far more glamorous and scenic romp in the realm of the rom-com , is a gluten-free though nonetheless selfindulgent affair. It cashes in with insouciant synergy on Kartik Aaryan’s charming chemistry with Ananya Pandey. The two seem to be in the frolicsome mode in the first-half, as cinematographer Anil Mehta captures the Croatian seascape with azure amorousness.
The locales are eye-catching and the young fetching couple seem to be attracted to one another in the way they can only be in Karan Johar’s production. Kartik as Ray (from Satyaprem to Ray is a leap of faith) and Ananya Pandey (well groomed and easy on the eyes) as Rumi, negotiate the absence of dramatic troughs in the first-half with an easygoing banter.
Then comes the midpoint awakening in the plot. The screen lights up with some smart writing and a supporting cast that has a blast . Neena Gupta as Ray’s feisty mother and Jackie Shroff as Rumi’s father are in their element, especially Ms Gupta whose Pinky is a promise well kept. She is a mixture of perkiness and prankishness. Neena even gets to shake a leg to her own nostalgic chartbuster ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’.
Cute, no?
Retro music especially Viju Shah’s ‘Saat samundar paar’ blankets the bacchanalia and we never feel the chill of the frail plot underneath the singing and dancing. It is all done in the spirit of a swanky sangeet ceremony. Colours have always made a splash in Karan Johar’s cinema. In Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri (the tongue twisting title defines the playful mood) colours are frequently mentioned as a part of the mood of exteriorized revelry.
At one point Rumi tells Ray her father doesn’t like the colour green as he was in the army.
“Okay, then I have a saffron jacket. I will wear that when I come to meet your father.”
This is as close to politics as a Karan Johar film can come without puncturing the prevalent party mood. Everyone is in the mood for fun including an Aunty who lusts after Kartik Aaryan while her husband (poor Tiku Talsania) groans, “Sayyam (self-control)”.
By the time Kartik and Jackie Shroff do their own SRK-Amrish Puri in DDLJ it is time throw all caution to the winds and just have fun.
