Anjaana Anjaani (2010)

I decided to give this movie another chance. I watched it a year ago and disliked it, but it’s stuck with me and when I gave it another shot, I liked it better. Reduced expectations FTW!

The premise is made to be printed on the back of a dvd cover. Two strangers meet at night on a bridge in New York, preparing to jump. Akash (Ranbir Kapoor) has bankrupted his company in the recession and Kiara (Priyanka Chopra) found out that her fiance cheated on her. Their suicide attempts are aborted by the coast guard, and they sneak out of the hospital together to try again. This could be really good material for a black comedy, as they try another few botched attempts to kill themselves together. I think Ranbir and Priyanka could pull it off, but the writers went the easy route and made a movie about people deciding to live each day as if it's their last and learning valuable lessons about love and life along the way. That doesn't have to make it a bad movie, but there's glimmers of what it could have been along the way.

Aas Paas Hai Khuda ends with a really poignant scene where Akash realizes that he’s no longer eager to end his life, and his connection with Kiara is why. And he finds out, suddenly and horribly, that she doesn’t feel the same way. The moment is sent straight to the trash once she’s in the hospital, as her doctor rants at Akash about how unappreciative some people are and how kids these days don’t value their life like they should.

You know, maybe the woman with multiple suicide attempts has a little more going on than "kids these days".

Anyway, they take a road trip to Vegas, because they're trying to fit in all the stuff they want to do before they die and because making a movie about actual depressed people sitting around being depressed would be really boring. So they have road trip adventures instead, including Akash singing Disco Dancer in a gay cowboy strip bar (or something) as part of a ruse to recover the keys to Kiara's red convertible. Also, apparently the entire road between New York and Las Vegas is made of desert. 

Despite having a moment together in their Vegas motel, Kiara is stuck on the idea that Kunal (cheating fiance, played by Zayed Khan) is her soulmate. There's some ambivalence, but Akash drops her off in San Francisco so she can reunite with Kunal and her family, as he returns to New York to try and pick up the pieces of the life he left behind.

They still have a suicide pact going, though. They had planned to meet again on the bridge at midnight on New Year's Eve, after they'd fulfilled their last wishes, and finally jump. Neither is sure the other will be there, but they both rush to the bridge at the last minute to confess their love, except they have to make an effort to fulfill their pact first. They decide to wade into the Atlantic instead of jump and it's only when they're chest-deep that Akash proposes. This is something that would've worked really great in the black-comedy-that-could-have-been, but it's played so straight as romantic that it just feel weird. I know they're trying to come full circle, and have their new life begin where they first met, both wanting to end it, but it just made me uncomfortable. 

Kiara's lehenga and sneakers cracked me up. It was just so in character.

I didn't actually mind the story of how Akash and Kiara found meaning in life and each other, but romance doesn't fix mental illness and the little credits montage of Akash and Kiara and their new baby just made me go 'I hope her doctor is looking out for post-partum depression!' That's not how it works in movies, though. And I'm always saying that I watch movies for the entertainment and escapism, which is probably why I came around to liking this movie after all.