Jab Harry Met Sejal: What You Seek Is Seeking You!
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Reviewer’s Thumb Mark
According to the 13th century Persian Poet and Sufi Mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, popularly known as Rumi, “Jise Tum Dhoond Rahe Ho, Wohi Tumhe Dhoond Raha Hai”(What You Seek Is Seeking You). Imtiaz Ali known for his philosophical messages in his movies try to draw a point through Harry and Sejal that we all are seeking something. We seek that something that we miss in people and things around us so that our weaknesses is complemented with their strengths and in the process, we become complete together as ‘One’.
Harry, a travel guide working with Euro Travels is also a womanizer and according to him has been fired many times by his bosses and had to shift places to continue in his profession. He is aware of his weakness and he also tries hard to overcome this vice but admits nonchalantly that he finally falls prey to it. He is also found to escape by being confronted by his past girlfriends.
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Harry’s carefree life takes a turn when one of his tourist, Sejal, a Gujarati from India, decides to stay back in Amsterdam to search her lost engagement diamond ring by letting her fiancé and family members to fly back to India. Sejal, a chirpy girl all set for her marriage doesn’t want to be listed as an irresponsible girl who lost a diamond ring gifted by her fiancé and is determined not to live with that tag for the rest of her life. Sejal has no other option but to hold Harry for ransom with a threat that she will complain to his boss if he doesn’t accompany her. Harry for fear of losing his job and being deported from Europe decides to reluctantly be with Sejal in her search for her ring.
Imtiaz Ali’s effort to convey a beautiful message gets diluted due to its lengthy, repetitive, pointless and dumb scenes. The various locations Harry and Sejal travels in search of the ring is depicted by a map that pops up at regular intervals whereas all the locations seem same. After every hug, they land up at a new foreign location. What is interesting to note is, at one point of time Sejal herself says that all the places look the same. I wonder, whether Imtiaz himself realized late that he didn’t make the places look distinct in his film nor his scenes. Imtiaz Ali falters in justifying the romance between Harry and Sejal by not giving us compelling reasons to believe what is happening onscreen. He also doesn’t build up the character of Harry in regard to why and how he left his family in Punjab and migrated to Europe. There is just a fleeting mention that he wanted to become a singer and at one point of time sings at full throttle a Punjabi song justifying that it is because he got used to singing louder than his tractor’s sound on the field.
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Shah Rukh Khan as Harrinder Singh aka Harry tries hard to give his best performance but at times looks tired, over doing things and aged. Anushka Sharma as Sejal sounds different because of her Gujarati accent and has given a decent performance. As actors both of them seems to be aware of the superficial and forced romantic scenes and dialogues. The two have shared the screen space for the third time. There past onscreen outing Rab Ne Banadhi Jodi and Jab Tak Hi Jaan were far better and had a better audience too.
It is unfortunate to mention that Shah Rukh Khan who has done such wonderful movies in the past, is found off late not so deft in choosing the right kind of stories and films he should be doing.
The songs and background score are ok. Lyrics by Irshad Kamil are good. In short, Jab Harry Met Sejal, the audience keep wondering why they met and by that time when they realize, they find the credit lines roll on the screen. Imtiaz Ali, no doubt has offered good movies like Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal, Rockstar, Highway and Tamasha etc but this time he seems to be carried away by his own fancies somewhere getting disconnected with his huge audience who love his kind of films. What I would suggest is, if you are a diehard fan of SRK, go for it, otherwise, give a skip and wait for him to come up next time with a better one.
.Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 2/5
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan (Harrinder Singh aka Harry), Anushka Sharma (Sejal Zaveri), Aru Krishansh Verma (Mayank), Evelyn Sharma (Neha), Chandan Roy Sanyal (Gas)
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Producer: Gauri Khan
Written by: Imtiaz Ali
Music by: (Songs) Pritam, Diplo; (Background Music) Hitesh Sonik
Edited by: Aarti Bajaj
Cinematography: KU Mohanan
Production Company: Red Chillies Entertainment
Distributor: Yash Raj Films
Release Date: 4th July, 2017
Language: Hindi
Duration: 146 Minutes
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