Bollywood movies, and especially Bollywood romances, tend to be at
least a little improbable. This is normally not a problem for me;
while a movie like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is riddled with plot
holes and convenient coincidences, but I still care because the core
relationships ring true. Without that, you get something more like Na Tum Jaano Na Hum (2002).
Esha Malhotra (Esha Deol) finds a mysterious love note jammed in a book from her college library. The note is a few years old, but she is moved, and calls a radio station to dedicate her favorite song to the man who wrote the note. Rahul (Hrithik Roshan), the man in question, calls in to say “Wow! You may be the woman for me despite my knowing nothing at all about you!”
The DJ arranges a meeting, but Esha does not show up. Instead she sends a letter which explains that while the mystery man on the phone may well be her destined soul mate, she carries the honor of her family with her and can’t go about meeting strange men. Instead, she proposes that he write to her at a PO box, and they can get to know one another. When she feels she trusts him enough to introduce him to her grandfather (Alok Nath), they can worry about petty details like names and addresses and what they do for a living.
Of course Rahul agrees. He gets his own PO box, and they exchange letters and fall in love. And this is really where the film falls down. I can buy the notion of two people falling in love through letters; thanks to the miracle of email, I communicate with some of my closest friends almost entirely through text. In order to fall in love sight unseen, though, they’d have to be really fantastic letters. The few examples that we’re given in NTJNH really aren’t. The big revelation in the excerpts given is that they both like chocolate milk, and that’s not really a firm basis for a lasting relationship. Given the restrictions Esha places on the relationship, there’s not much more they can reveal, however; she specifically includes their respective careers. Since what we do is such a huge part of what we are, chocolate milk and the color blue is all they have left.
While Esha doesn’t know anything about Rahul, we know that he is a photographer, and that he has been friends with Akshay (Saif Ali Khan) since childhood. Akshay is a spoiled playboy ho believes that there are women you love and women you marry, and at the moment he’s only interested in the loving. I’ll get back to Akshay in a minute.
Esha works for her grandfather’s department store. They need a photographer for their new catalog, and based on the samples she is shown, she selects Rahul Sharma. Rahul accepts, and surprisingly, when the pair meet in person they do not clash at all. They get along quite well, in fact, and Rahul is soon spending all his free time with Esha and her family. Neither one has any clue who the other one is, though, so the letters continue.
Happy idylls never last, of course. Esha’s family arrange a marriage offer for her. The potential groom is Akshay, and it turns out he sent his best friend Rahul to check out the bride before accepting. Based on Rahul’s recommendation, Akshay immediately falls head over heels in love. Esha, on the other hand, is growing increasingly desperate. She loves the mystery man she’s been writing to, and doesn’t want to marry anyone else. She tries to arrange a meeting, but Rahul spots her first, realizes the truth, and decides that he can’t possibly come between Akshay and his love, despite the fact that Akshay has just met her, and Esha clearly doesn’t like him. Cue the angst.
The tag line for Na Tum Jaano Na Hum is “Sometimes you just leave it to God . . .” and that is exactly what Esha and Rahul do. He occasionally weeps, she spends the last half of the movie looking cranky, but apart from a few token attempts they choose to rely on fate when all their problems could be solved by two minutes of conversation. Akshay is written as the least admirable of the three leads, but I liked him best because he at least was willing to communicate, and tried to solve his own problems.
I don’t mind far-fetched premises, and I’m happy to ignore plot holes in order to enjoy a silly romance, but the film has to make me want to. Na Tum Jaano Na Hum doesn’t.
Esha Malhotra (Esha Deol) finds a mysterious love note jammed in a book from her college library. The note is a few years old, but she is moved, and calls a radio station to dedicate her favorite song to the man who wrote the note. Rahul (Hrithik Roshan), the man in question, calls in to say “Wow! You may be the woman for me despite my knowing nothing at all about you!”
The DJ arranges a meeting, but Esha does not show up. Instead she sends a letter which explains that while the mystery man on the phone may well be her destined soul mate, she carries the honor of her family with her and can’t go about meeting strange men. Instead, she proposes that he write to her at a PO box, and they can get to know one another. When she feels she trusts him enough to introduce him to her grandfather (Alok Nath), they can worry about petty details like names and addresses and what they do for a living.
Of course Rahul agrees. He gets his own PO box, and they exchange letters and fall in love. And this is really where the film falls down. I can buy the notion of two people falling in love through letters; thanks to the miracle of email, I communicate with some of my closest friends almost entirely through text. In order to fall in love sight unseen, though, they’d have to be really fantastic letters. The few examples that we’re given in NTJNH really aren’t. The big revelation in the excerpts given is that they both like chocolate milk, and that’s not really a firm basis for a lasting relationship. Given the restrictions Esha places on the relationship, there’s not much more they can reveal, however; she specifically includes their respective careers. Since what we do is such a huge part of what we are, chocolate milk and the color blue is all they have left.
While Esha doesn’t know anything about Rahul, we know that he is a photographer, and that he has been friends with Akshay (Saif Ali Khan) since childhood. Akshay is a spoiled playboy ho believes that there are women you love and women you marry, and at the moment he’s only interested in the loving. I’ll get back to Akshay in a minute.
Esha works for her grandfather’s department store. They need a photographer for their new catalog, and based on the samples she is shown, she selects Rahul Sharma. Rahul accepts, and surprisingly, when the pair meet in person they do not clash at all. They get along quite well, in fact, and Rahul is soon spending all his free time with Esha and her family. Neither one has any clue who the other one is, though, so the letters continue.
Happy idylls never last, of course. Esha’s family arrange a marriage offer for her. The potential groom is Akshay, and it turns out he sent his best friend Rahul to check out the bride before accepting. Based on Rahul’s recommendation, Akshay immediately falls head over heels in love. Esha, on the other hand, is growing increasingly desperate. She loves the mystery man she’s been writing to, and doesn’t want to marry anyone else. She tries to arrange a meeting, but Rahul spots her first, realizes the truth, and decides that he can’t possibly come between Akshay and his love, despite the fact that Akshay has just met her, and Esha clearly doesn’t like him. Cue the angst.
The tag line for Na Tum Jaano Na Hum is “Sometimes you just leave it to God . . .” and that is exactly what Esha and Rahul do. He occasionally weeps, she spends the last half of the movie looking cranky, but apart from a few token attempts they choose to rely on fate when all their problems could be solved by two minutes of conversation. Akshay is written as the least admirable of the three leads, but I liked him best because he at least was willing to communicate, and tried to solve his own problems.
I don’t mind far-fetched premises, and I’m happy to ignore plot holes in order to enjoy a silly romance, but the film has to make me want to. Na Tum Jaano Na Hum doesn’t.
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