Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1993) is one of those rare
Bollywood movies where the ending isn’t obvious after the first half
hour. Of course, since the ending is the part I find really
interesting, I’m going to go ahead and give it all away anyway. So if
you really want to be surprised, go ahead and watch the movie, and then
come back. I’ll be here.
Sunil (Shahrukh Khan) is an aspiring musician living in Goa. He hasn’t had much success yet, either in music or in life; he’s failed his college exams the last three years running, and his band has yet to play in public. Still, Sunil loves music, nearly as much as he loves Anna (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi), the band’s token female singer. He’s not the only one. Chris (Deepak Tijori), another member of the band, is charming, rich, and very successful, and is also very much in love with Anna.
A friend of one of the other band members happens to know the owner of ChinaTown, a local club. The band are happy to exploit the connection, and Mr. Patel (Tiku Talsania) hires them on the spot. Before the details can be finalized, though, the previous band are booed off stage and pelted with glasses by the (very rowdy) audience. Patel promptly announces that he will never hire an inexperienced band again, and desperately asks the group if they’ve performed in public before. While Sunil quickly comes up with an elaborate lie about performing at the “Enter the Dragon” club (Sunil has a flexible relationship with truth, and Patel has a Bruce Lee poster on the wall) Chris and the others insist on coming clean, so the band goes home disappointed.
Still, these crazy kids are resourceful. They manage to get a gig performing at a wedding they know Patel will be attending. Sunil writes a fantastic love song, the band performs their hearts out, and Patel hires them back. Which is good.
During the song, though, Anna and Chris realized the true depths of their feelings for one another, and start a relationship. Which is bad, for Sunil at least. He tries to stall the developing relationship through lying, and he nearly succeeds. He doesn’t coordinate the lies well enough, though, and is quickly found out. Anna declares that she never wants to see him again, and Sunil is thrown out of the band and (rather cruelly) taunted whenever he tries to make amends.
The rest of the band show up for their first performance at ChinaTown, and start singing the happy, shiny love song that went over so well at the wedding, but are stunned by the crowd’s reaction. They’re about to be pelted with glass when Sunil comes to the rescue. He’s written a song about an innocent young man who can’t get a job, loses the love of his life, and becomes a Don. The band quickly choreograph a lavish dance number, and the crowd loves it, especially Anthony Gomez (Goga Kapoor), the local Don. Sunil is now forgiven, let back in the band, and has earned the favor of the local crime lord.
Anna and Chris have become very serious at this point, and plan to marry. Before Anna’s parents can arrange a match, though, they find that Chris’s parents have promised him to the daughter of a business associate. Chris tries to convince his parents, but winds up staring like a deer caught in headlights as his parents happily announce his engagement.
Meanwhile, Sunil has failed his exams again. Out of desperation, he lies to his parents about it, but when the lie spirals out of control (with a party being thrown in his honor) he has to come clean. His father is close to disowning him when kindly Father Briganza (Naseeruddin Shah) points out how much courage it took for Sunil to confess, and asks everyone present to focus on Sunil’s good qualities rather than dwelling on the negative. They all do, and Anna in particular begins to think about him in a different way. When her parents suggest that Sunil might make a good husband, she doesn’t object. And when Sunil proposes to her, she happily accepts.
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa sounds like a typical Bollywood teen romance, and it is. At the same time, it’s also a very well-crafted character study of Sunil, who grows from a callow, glib, charming boy into a young man who deserves his happy ending. A lot of the credit has to go to Shahrukh Khan; while Sunil is in many ways “Standard SRK Character #47″, the intense focus on character gives him considerably more depth.
And that is that. It’s a fairly typical story, but told in a slightly unusual way . . . except that the film isn’t quite over yet. After Anna accepts his proposal, Sunil leaves, but realizes he forgot to give Anna his parents’ gift. he returns just in time to see Chris trying to win Anna back, and Anna refusing because she doesn’t want to hurt Sunil. He broods for a moment, and the next scene we see is Anna marrying Chris. It turns out Sunil has been a supporting character all along; he’s really Nice But Unsuitable Guy, and while Sunil is clearly the protagonist, Chris is the traditional virtuous hero. I found the sudden shift in perspective very interesting.
In the end, Sunil is sitting on the street looking sad when he meets the film’s designated Consolation Girl (played by Juhi Chawla, no less!) and winds up walking into the night with her (while carrying her luggage) as Don Anthony addresses the audience to deliver our moral:
Sunil (Shahrukh Khan) is an aspiring musician living in Goa. He hasn’t had much success yet, either in music or in life; he’s failed his college exams the last three years running, and his band has yet to play in public. Still, Sunil loves music, nearly as much as he loves Anna (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi), the band’s token female singer. He’s not the only one. Chris (Deepak Tijori), another member of the band, is charming, rich, and very successful, and is also very much in love with Anna.
A friend of one of the other band members happens to know the owner of ChinaTown, a local club. The band are happy to exploit the connection, and Mr. Patel (Tiku Talsania) hires them on the spot. Before the details can be finalized, though, the previous band are booed off stage and pelted with glasses by the (very rowdy) audience. Patel promptly announces that he will never hire an inexperienced band again, and desperately asks the group if they’ve performed in public before. While Sunil quickly comes up with an elaborate lie about performing at the “Enter the Dragon” club (Sunil has a flexible relationship with truth, and Patel has a Bruce Lee poster on the wall) Chris and the others insist on coming clean, so the band goes home disappointed.
Still, these crazy kids are resourceful. They manage to get a gig performing at a wedding they know Patel will be attending. Sunil writes a fantastic love song, the band performs their hearts out, and Patel hires them back. Which is good.
During the song, though, Anna and Chris realized the true depths of their feelings for one another, and start a relationship. Which is bad, for Sunil at least. He tries to stall the developing relationship through lying, and he nearly succeeds. He doesn’t coordinate the lies well enough, though, and is quickly found out. Anna declares that she never wants to see him again, and Sunil is thrown out of the band and (rather cruelly) taunted whenever he tries to make amends.
The rest of the band show up for their first performance at ChinaTown, and start singing the happy, shiny love song that went over so well at the wedding, but are stunned by the crowd’s reaction. They’re about to be pelted with glass when Sunil comes to the rescue. He’s written a song about an innocent young man who can’t get a job, loses the love of his life, and becomes a Don. The band quickly choreograph a lavish dance number, and the crowd loves it, especially Anthony Gomez (Goga Kapoor), the local Don. Sunil is now forgiven, let back in the band, and has earned the favor of the local crime lord.
Anna and Chris have become very serious at this point, and plan to marry. Before Anna’s parents can arrange a match, though, they find that Chris’s parents have promised him to the daughter of a business associate. Chris tries to convince his parents, but winds up staring like a deer caught in headlights as his parents happily announce his engagement.
Meanwhile, Sunil has failed his exams again. Out of desperation, he lies to his parents about it, but when the lie spirals out of control (with a party being thrown in his honor) he has to come clean. His father is close to disowning him when kindly Father Briganza (Naseeruddin Shah) points out how much courage it took for Sunil to confess, and asks everyone present to focus on Sunil’s good qualities rather than dwelling on the negative. They all do, and Anna in particular begins to think about him in a different way. When her parents suggest that Sunil might make a good husband, she doesn’t object. And when Sunil proposes to her, she happily accepts.
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa sounds like a typical Bollywood teen romance, and it is. At the same time, it’s also a very well-crafted character study of Sunil, who grows from a callow, glib, charming boy into a young man who deserves his happy ending. A lot of the credit has to go to Shahrukh Khan; while Sunil is in many ways “Standard SRK Character #47″, the intense focus on character gives him considerably more depth.
And that is that. It’s a fairly typical story, but told in a slightly unusual way . . . except that the film isn’t quite over yet. After Anna accepts his proposal, Sunil leaves, but realizes he forgot to give Anna his parents’ gift. he returns just in time to see Chris trying to win Anna back, and Anna refusing because she doesn’t want to hurt Sunil. He broods for a moment, and the next scene we see is Anna marrying Chris. It turns out Sunil has been a supporting character all along; he’s really Nice But Unsuitable Guy, and while Sunil is clearly the protagonist, Chris is the traditional virtuous hero. I found the sudden shift in perspective very interesting.
In the end, Sunil is sitting on the street looking sad when he meets the film’s designated Consolation Girl (played by Juhi Chawla, no less!) and winds up walking into the night with her (while carrying her luggage) as Don Anthony addresses the audience to deliver our moral:
“In life sometimes there are yes’s and no’s. Get over it just like Sunil did."And I can’t argue with that.
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