Pyaar Dewaana Hota Hai (2002)

(Translation: Love is Crazy). And crazy it is, man. I didn’t know anything about the movie before I watched it. It had Rani and Govinda, and "pyaar" written in pastel colors of the cover. For the most part, it's what it says on the tin: sentimental romance, unabashed filminess and some great dancing. Then it gets a little weird. More on that later.

Sunder (Govinda) is an artist who moves to Delhi from the country and his friends make fun of him for being naive and uneducated. He gets a job painting billboards and meets Payal (Rani Mukherjee) who’s visiting from the US. There’s a misunderstanding, she thinks he’s mute, and he keeps up the charade so he can keep seeing her.

And who can blame him? I really liked Payal. She does classical dance, she climbs up scaffolding to meet a sign painter, she drives herself to Agra in the middle of the night. When she’s struck with pity for a beggar, she sets him up with a telephone stand, and when she finds out he’s faked his disability, she has him tossed in jail. She’s the one who decides that what she feels for Sunder is love, not sympathy, and calmly tells her family of her decision to marry him.

Plus, Rani is peppy and gorgeous and has great chemistry with Govinda.

This review just descends into self-indulgent screencapping from here.

Sunder gets more and more enmeshed in his lie as he hams his way into Payal’s heart. (Govinda’s portrayal of a mute person is handled with all the sensitivity Bollywood can muster. He basically goes around overacting and going “Beh beh beh”, but I can’t help it, I still think he’s adorable.)

He’s scared of telling her the truth because she places such a high value on honesty. They lay it on pretty thick.

This is just her reaction to finding out that he had lied about having gone to college.

The item song right after this conversation is really well integrated into the plot. Sunder is grappling with ideas of truth and lies and love and it’s well choreographed besides.

He tries to tell her the truth, but chickens out.

Payal thinks it's a mean joke and yells at him before he can explain.

There’s a scene where Payal thinks Sunder has been killed. She races around the hospital in her dance outfit and her bangles fall to the floor and shatter. When she sees him alive, there are all of the feelings and they embrace and the camera spins and then we are dancing in fields of yellow mustard and then we’re in the mountains and it’s the filmiest thing ever. Why I love Bollywood in 5 minutes, right there.

The bangles:

The dawning realization of true love:

Get out your pencils and notebooks, actresses of today, because Rani is taking you to school.

The feelings:

ALL OF THE FEELINGS

I wouldn’t say the songs was exceptional, but they made me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. Except for the item song, the picturizations are pretty much like this:

Yeh Kya Jadoo just an adorable package of Govinda's infectious manic energy.

And this:

And you get the idea.

After 2 hours of pyaar and angst, Payal finally discovers the truth. She’s shocked, but she finds Sunder at their spot in Agra to tell him that she forgives him and loves him anyway.

Their spot is apparently in front of a bad painting of the Taj Mahal.

If your credibility was in any way strained by everything that’s happened, I’d suggest stopping the movie right here. Just figure that they embrace, all is well, love conquers all, the pure-hearted is rewarded, you get the idea. Imagine a wedding song over the credits.

The last 15 minutes of the movie will have to be another post.