by Subhash K Jha
Starring: Aftab
Shivdasani, Natassha, Dipanita Sharma, Himanshu
Malik.
Directed by Parto Mitra
Rating: **
Can a man
and a woman remain friends without turning into lovers? Yes,
said When Harry Met Sally… Maybe, Says Koi Aap Sa, producer
Ekta Kapoor's heartwarming thought inconsistent homage to the
cinema of Karan Johar.
Sure enough, Koi Aap Sa has bits
of Kal Ho Na Ho(specially in Himesh Reshammiya's music score),
bits of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham(the protagonist weeps
copiously into his popcorn while watching K3G) and loads and
loads of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
In fact Koi Aap Sa, by far
the most valid film Ekta Kapoor has produced, is a
contemporized version of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai with Aftab,
Natassha and Dipanita playing the man, the tomboy and the
femme fatale on the kaleidoscopic kollege kampus.
While the ladies replicate Kajol and Rani's
characters even in incidental details(Aftab pleads with
Natassha not to abandon college, a la Shah Rukh's famous train
sequence with Kajol) the metrocentric male protagonist in Koi
Aap Sa is quite a departure from the selfcentred cool dude
Khan played.
Aftab's Rohan is cool but committed,
sporty but sensitive, precocious but poetic. He flirts with
the campus siren Dipanita Sharma but stands steadfast by his
best friend Natassha when she's raped and
impregnated.
This bit of gruesome plot construction
serves a dual purpose. It gives the film an edge of social
relevance (unwed mothehood in a stress-free campus romance is
quite something) and it gives our hero a chance to play
several deeply sensitive shades of manhood.
Hats off to
Aftab Shivdasani for playing a man of today with both a
feminine and masculine sides to his character, with such
effortless charm. Partly naïve and partly a man-of-the-world
Aftab's Rohit is a consummate hero emobodying the best aspects
of the romantic comedy. The actor has overcome his earlier
gawkiness to communicate an endearing spectrum of urban
emotions related to love friendship and
commitment.
It's a polished
performance, more so than portions of the narrative which
tends to veer into screechy selfparody. The sweaty pub dances
and football games seem to be vandalized from a zillion
Hollywood blues-chasers, and the supporting cast of friends
foes and relatives are straight out of Ekta Kapoor's trillion
soaps.
But the film has a surface and slight charm of
its own. It manoeuvres its way through a plethora of cute
situations. Cleverly packaged and edited to accentuate the
sweaty curves in the jukebox triangle , the film leaves you
with a smile for projecting an aura of positivity and for
venturing into a young theme without getting callow shallow
and crude.
