Movie Review: 'Hamari Adhuri Kahani' - The Biggest Disappointment Of The Year

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Rajkummar Rao, Sara Khan, Madhurima Tuli, Amala Akkineni

Director: Mohit Suri

Rating: *1/2

With a movie running so high on emotions, one asks for nothing but for the movie to be backed with a powerful script and narration. Unfortunately for the audience, the movie fails, and fails miserably at this front. Hamari Adhuri Kahani, directed by Mohit Suri who also gave us Aashiqui-2 doesn`t deliver this time. Running for close to 130 minutes, this movie is not only a grilling test of your patience, but also your endurance.

Meet Vasudha, played by Vidya Balan, young mom of little boy, making a hard living in the hospitality business; Hari, played by Rajkumar Rao, who doesn`t have much of a role as her husband, cursed with an unconvincing past; and Arav, portrayed by Emraan Hashmi, simply looking to fall in love to seek some joy out of it.

Clearly, there is no dearth of talent here with some of the most remarkable actors in the industry coming together for what could have been a movie of a lifetime. First things first, the writing is really weak. The sequences were one expects to be blown away by an array of powerful emotions, there is nothing but whining and meaningless dialogues. If the writer thought that dialogue writing was going to be all about cliched phrases and obnoxious Hindi words, well, clearly the director has the wrong person on the job.

Coming to the performances. Clearly, a weak script cannot bring out the best in any actor, even if its SRK. Rajkumar Rao`s character has a weak background story which leaves the audience confused in more than one place. Emraan Hashmi, as Arav, with his lavish lifestyle and comfortable outlook towards life often misses the sentiments he was expected to bring to his character. Vidya Balan`s acting seems so over the top at places with all the poorly written dialogues that it`s difficult not to be irritated by the end of this whining saga.

The music and the background score of this movie are far better than its story, but they aren`t strong enough to be the saving grace. The title track has already garnered close to a million views on YouTube. Apart from the title track, there is nothing much for you to take back.

While some may call this story as the perfect description of the hypocrisy that exists in our society, it cannot be ruled out that the director clearly missed his mark while understanding the current setup of the society. We don`t mind a tragic story, but we do have serious issues with tragic writing and narration.

Hamari Adhuri Kahani is like one of those songs that are conceived in a single moment of inspiration. Mostly, such pieces of art are better preserved inside a mind than the box office. It`s time for Bollywood to take narration and writing seriously. Actors and stories like this must not be wasted. What a disappointment! Alas!