'Jab Harry Met Sejal' movie review: SRK on a 'Mills & Boon' note

After a breezy first half, Jab Harry Met Sejal trips into a predictably mushy territory

At the interval, the headline that rung for this review was 'Watch them twice: Once for Harry, and Once More for Sejal.' Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, with just two characters filling the screen for a good 75 minutes, it appeared were on their film-fun trip of a lifetime.

As Sejal (Anushka Sharma) would eventually tell us on-screen, 'it appeared too good to be true.' Director Imtiaz Ali, the modern master of mainstream Bollywood romance, once again, falls prey to the curse of the second half.

But let that not deter you from missing out on this saccharine sweet romantic drama, where Shah Rukh Khan doesn't bother about playing a good part of his age. Now, that might irk a few because he does not do the 'Raj Malhotra' anymore.

He doesn't stretch out his hands (Varun Dhawan does it these days) and have pretty girls falling into them. And no, he doesn't make you cry either. Instead, he does what he seldom gets to do: Play the character. And he does a fantastic job about that, as convincing as you could get, and effortlessly balancing the star-and-character dichotomy.

With its flimsy plotline - of a woman losing her engagement ring, then joining her tour guide to scrabble around Europe in search of it and the bond that forms between the two - Jab Harry Met Sejal could have fallen terribly flat in the hands of any less a writer.

But Imtiaz Ali presents a charming first-half with his remarkable writing with one scene flowing into the next with seamless fluidity. Every moment is dynamic as the characters evolve, and Shah Rukh Khan playing the flirty tour guide with his trademark charm. Note that Harry is not the clean, sterile hero that he is used to playing; he is self-admittedly 'a bad man with women.'

Anushka Sharma plays along; it is delighting to watch the two of them spar on screen, and Anushka is in top form switching emotions and expressions, without being loud, grating or annoyingly coy. It is in building the character sketches of the two that we also see Imtiaz Ali's directorial strength; he moulds the actors like clay, breathing life into their characters.

Post-interval the film hits the speed-breaker. It is not as much as a shuddering thud; it is just that the velocity that propelled the film in the first half, slows down, and things become a tad too predictable. Surprisingly from Imtiaz, the additional characters that enter the scene are more cardboard caricatures than real. His surefooted moves falter and the sagging becomes obvious.

As the film heads into the climax, a very lame one, let you be warned, it also evokes the very same emotional quotient of the Malayalam film Kilukkam (remade in Hindi as Muskurahat) with the hero bemoaning the fate of tour guides, in mock impassion stating, 'after all, holidays must end.' You also feel that Sejal could well have been the female version of Ved from Imtiaz's own earlier flick Tamasha.

Thankfully Imtiaz does not play up on the melodrama; everything is rather muted and controlled, and tears are kept to a minimum. Jab Harry Met Sejal, thus, becomes a rather timid affair, predictable and with no further surprises in store. Watch it for some breezy first-half moments.

Jab Harry Met Sejal
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma
Directed by Imtiaz Ali
Now playing at theatres in the UAE
Rating: 2.5/5