It’s only natural that so many Bollywood movies have titles which
mean “love and/or the heart is crazy.” Love is, after all, famously
unpredictable, and there’s no telling who will wind up loving whom.
Some loves are crazier than others, however, and Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai (2002) is more so than most.
It all starts simply enough. Sunder (Govinda) is an artist who travels from his rural village to Delhi in search of work. A few wacky misunderstandings later, Sunder is staying in an apartment with Riaz, Wills, and Karthik (Deepak Tijori, Laxmikant Berde, and Kishore Bhanushali), and working as a sign painter alongside Paresh (Johny Lever).
Sunder is painfully naive, and the film wrings a little slapstick comedy out of his roommates giving him bad advice about women. After a trip to the hospital, he gives up his romantic aspirations,. and that’s when he catches sight of Payal (Rani Mukherjee), who is in India to study classical dance. When he sees her, Payal is getting directions from a mute girl on the street, and thanks to a passer-by’s comment, he assumes that she is the one who’s mute, so when she drops the address, he tells her the way through a combination of grunting and hand gestures. Naturally, she assumes that he is mute, so the pair keep meeting and not speaking.
When Sunder finally realizes that Payal can speak, he decides to keep the ruse going; he loves her, but he realizes that she doesn’t love him, and since she will be going back to America in three months, he wants to spend as much time with her as he can. So, despite the very good advice of Sunder’s roommates, they keep meeting, and become closer and closer, while Sunder constantly berates himself for lying.
It’s a stupid premise, and the kind of thing that would never fly here in the United States, especially as Govinda’s method of playing mute is to gesticulate wildly and say “Beh!” over and over. I couldn’t help laughing, though, especially during the touching duet, with Payal singing and Sunder “Beh”ing. Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai is harmless goofy fun. Rani is gorgeous, the songs are catchy, and, love him or hate him, Govinda proves that he can handle an entire dance number by himself and still remain interesting.
“But wait!” I hear you saying. “That’s a little crazy, but I’ve seen much crazier. What’s the big deal?” I will tell you, gentle reader, but it involves spoiling the end of the film. If you don’t want to know what happens next, stop reading now. I won’t mind.
The situation becomes more serious when Payal hears that a mute sign painter has fallen to his death. (There was a mute sign painter in one scene at the beginning of the film, but he promptly vanishes.) She becomes increasingly desperate as she travels from hospital to hospital looking for Sunder, and when she finally finds him alive and well it becomes clear to both of them that she loves him as well.
Sunder feels increasingly guilty about lying to Payal, and they both have a few close brushes with the truth. He finally goes to her house, intent on telling her everything, but overhears her telling her visiting parents that she intends to marry him, and that she loves him for his incredible honesty. Grief stricken, he runs away.
Payal, meanwhile, finds out the truth in perhaps the worst way possible. She goes to his apartment to confront him, but none of the roommates know where Sunder is either. When she finds him, she rebukes him, both for lying and for assuming that she couldn’t forgive him; as she explains, she has been praying and consulting with every doctor she could find, all because she wants to hear him say her name, just once.
Sunder sits silently through the speech, and doesn’t speak even after Payal and his friends beg him to driop the act. Finally, Om Puri appears to offer an explanation.
Puri plays Doctor S. Puri, who had examined Sunder earlier in the film. He explains that Sunder came to him asking to be made mute. Dr. Puri initially refused (because such a thing would be a gross violation of medical ethics) but Sunder’s passionate insistence on finally being truthful with Payal, and punishing himself for the earlier lie, made him waver. When Sunder realized that the doctor would not perform the operation, and was trying to call Payal, Sunder grabbed a nearby pair of scissors, and . . .
Well.
The movie portrays this as an act of incredible devotion. Payal is so impressed when she hears the story that she immediately leans over to touch Sunder’s feet. Now I have been around the block a few times, and I know what it’s like to love someone desperately; my dil has been more than a little pagal a time or two in the past. But Sunder? That’s not romantic, it’s just deeply, deeply stupid.
Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai. A silly and very entertaining film with an awful, awful ending.
It all starts simply enough. Sunder (Govinda) is an artist who travels from his rural village to Delhi in search of work. A few wacky misunderstandings later, Sunder is staying in an apartment with Riaz, Wills, and Karthik (Deepak Tijori, Laxmikant Berde, and Kishore Bhanushali), and working as a sign painter alongside Paresh (Johny Lever).
Sunder is painfully naive, and the film wrings a little slapstick comedy out of his roommates giving him bad advice about women. After a trip to the hospital, he gives up his romantic aspirations,. and that’s when he catches sight of Payal (Rani Mukherjee), who is in India to study classical dance. When he sees her, Payal is getting directions from a mute girl on the street, and thanks to a passer-by’s comment, he assumes that she is the one who’s mute, so when she drops the address, he tells her the way through a combination of grunting and hand gestures. Naturally, she assumes that he is mute, so the pair keep meeting and not speaking.
When Sunder finally realizes that Payal can speak, he decides to keep the ruse going; he loves her, but he realizes that she doesn’t love him, and since she will be going back to America in three months, he wants to spend as much time with her as he can. So, despite the very good advice of Sunder’s roommates, they keep meeting, and become closer and closer, while Sunder constantly berates himself for lying.
It’s a stupid premise, and the kind of thing that would never fly here in the United States, especially as Govinda’s method of playing mute is to gesticulate wildly and say “Beh!” over and over. I couldn’t help laughing, though, especially during the touching duet, with Payal singing and Sunder “Beh”ing. Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai is harmless goofy fun. Rani is gorgeous, the songs are catchy, and, love him or hate him, Govinda proves that he can handle an entire dance number by himself and still remain interesting.
“But wait!” I hear you saying. “That’s a little crazy, but I’ve seen much crazier. What’s the big deal?” I will tell you, gentle reader, but it involves spoiling the end of the film. If you don’t want to know what happens next, stop reading now. I won’t mind.
The situation becomes more serious when Payal hears that a mute sign painter has fallen to his death. (There was a mute sign painter in one scene at the beginning of the film, but he promptly vanishes.) She becomes increasingly desperate as she travels from hospital to hospital looking for Sunder, and when she finally finds him alive and well it becomes clear to both of them that she loves him as well.
Sunder feels increasingly guilty about lying to Payal, and they both have a few close brushes with the truth. He finally goes to her house, intent on telling her everything, but overhears her telling her visiting parents that she intends to marry him, and that she loves him for his incredible honesty. Grief stricken, he runs away.
Payal, meanwhile, finds out the truth in perhaps the worst way possible. She goes to his apartment to confront him, but none of the roommates know where Sunder is either. When she finds him, she rebukes him, both for lying and for assuming that she couldn’t forgive him; as she explains, she has been praying and consulting with every doctor she could find, all because she wants to hear him say her name, just once.
Sunder sits silently through the speech, and doesn’t speak even after Payal and his friends beg him to driop the act. Finally, Om Puri appears to offer an explanation.
Puri plays Doctor S. Puri, who had examined Sunder earlier in the film. He explains that Sunder came to him asking to be made mute. Dr. Puri initially refused (because such a thing would be a gross violation of medical ethics) but Sunder’s passionate insistence on finally being truthful with Payal, and punishing himself for the earlier lie, made him waver. When Sunder realized that the doctor would not perform the operation, and was trying to call Payal, Sunder grabbed a nearby pair of scissors, and . . .
Well.
The movie portrays this as an act of incredible devotion. Payal is so impressed when she hears the story that she immediately leans over to touch Sunder’s feet. Now I have been around the block a few times, and I know what it’s like to love someone desperately; my dil has been more than a little pagal a time or two in the past. But Sunder? That’s not romantic, it’s just deeply, deeply stupid.
Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai. A silly and very entertaining film with an awful, awful ending.
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