Long-time readers will know that I do not hate love stories.

 I Hate Luv Storys (2010) opens with a montage of clips from famous Bollywood movies in which the hero proclaims that he does not believe in love, only for him to declare his love by the end of the movie.  The voiceover by J (Imran Khan), this movie's hero, points out what a cliche the hero's sudden conversion is, but the movie is calling its shot: this is what's going to happen, yes it's a cliche, but you're going to like it anyway.

J is an assistant director for Veer Kapoor (Samir Soni), Bollywood's leading director of romantic films and an obvious, if affectionate, parody of Karan Johar.  Veer is planning a new film, a sweeping romantic saga called "Pyar Pyar Pyar," but it won't be like all those other movies, because this time they'll be filming in New Zealand!  J is less than impressed, because he's young and cynical and he hates love stories; he'd rather be working on a more serious film.  To fix his attitude, Veer assigns him to work on props under the direction of Art Director Simran (Sonam Kapoor).

Simran loves love stories; she grew up on romantic movies, and she works in Bollywood because it gives her a chance to live in that world.  She's dating her childhood sweetheart Raj (Sameer Dattani), who is handsome, attentive, and predictably romantic, sending Simran a white lily every day.  And she's met J before; he spotted her at a movie theater and tried and utterly failed to flirt with her.  Simran and J are bound to clash, and they do.  Things go so badly that J is in danger of being fired.

J goes to a dance party on the beach to blow off some steam, and meets and hooks up with Giselle (Bruna Abdullah), then they run into Raj and Simran, which does not help the frosty work situation.  In the light of day Giselle turns out to be annoying and shallow, so that relationship crumbles quickly.  

And then things start to change at work.  J and Simran share a few unguarded moments, make a connection, and become friends.  Good, supportive friends, even.  Simran challenges J's knee-jerk cynicism, and he makes her question whether her perfect life is as perfect as she thinks.  

And then the inevitable happens.  Simran realizes that her feelings for J are not so platonic.  She goes to confess her love but sees J with another woman, and they have an enormously awkward conversation about it.  J says he's never thought of her as anything but a friend, she apologizes for jumping to conclusions, and they part amicably, but it's clear that things have changed.  Simran is polite but distant, and arranges for a new props assistant, allowing J to resume working directly for Veer.  And it's just in time, because Veer needs help wrangling the movie's self-absorbed star, Rajiv (Aamir Ali), who functions as a composite parody with Shah Rukh Khan's career and Salman Khan's love life.

J mopes.  He mopes more when Simran leaves early to finalize things for the shoot in New Zealand, and his friend Kunal (Kavin Dave) slowly and carefully explains to him that he is in love with Simran after all.  When the rest of the production team arrive in new Zealand, Simran is still distant, but J tries to maker a grand romantic gesture.  Simran rejects him, because she doesn't trust his feelings and won't hurt Raj again.  can J win her back?  Will Simran take a risk to claim the life that she really wants?  Will true love win in the end?

Of course it will.  The opening montage spells out what's going to happen, and the big twist in the story is someone running away from the airport rather than running to it.  This is a movie that consciously chooses to lean into cliche.

Here's why it still works.  First, the "Bollywood behind the scenes" setting is both fascinating in its own right, and allows the movie to comment on itself, showing the cliches and then showing where they came form.  It also means that we can have a relatively grounded and character focused romance with all of the trappings of a grand romantic saga.

And then there are the side characters, who should be one dimensional stereotypes but get a surprising amount of respect form the storyline.  Giselle, the one night stand who was only there to show the limitations of J's playboy lifestyle, comes back to play a small but pivotal role, and while she's still annoying and kind of shallow, she's also kind kind, and J actually recognizes her as a real person with agency.  And while Rajiv is absolutely a self-absorbed doofus who is entirely too proud of his own backside, all the romantic movies he's made have given him a genuine insight into matters of the heart.  

I Hate Luv Storys might pretend to be a parody from time to time, but it's not a parody at all.  This is a love letter to Bollywood romance, borrowing the imagery of the silver screen to mythologize a very humble and ordinary romance.  It delivers exactly what it promised.

It's been a long road.

 Dunki (2023) is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan's third starring role after his recent Zero-driven hiatus.  There's a difference, though; both Jawan and Pathaan featured Action Shah Rukh, but Dunki has to do without beautifully choreographed violence, cool gadgets, or Deepika Padukone in a bikini.  Instead, the movie relies on Shah Rukh's affable charm, a strong supporting cast, and a clearly stated thesis.

The movie opens with Manu (Taapsee Pannu), a woman of a certain age, escaping from a London hospital.  She's determined to return to her home village in Punjab, but she can't get an Indian visa, so her lawyer Puru Patel (Deven Bhojani) puts her in touch with the one man who can help, her old flame Hardayal "Hardy" Singh Dillon (Shash Rukh Khan).  Hardy is thrilled to talk to her again, but when she asks him to meet her in Dubai, he says that he won't.  Manu knows better, and she gathers her friends Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover) to join her on the trip.

And the film flashes back twenty five years.  Manu is desperate to get to England, hoping to earn enough money to pay off her father's debt and buy back the family home.  And she's not the only one; Buggu and Balli both want to earn enough money to support their respective mothers and escape the dead end jobs they're trapped in.  They've tried various shady visa brokers and been cheated every time, but there's always hope.  Manu is actually looking for a wrestling coach for the latest immigration scheme when she meets former soldier Hardy, who traveled for miles to return a tape player to her late brother, the soldier who saved his life.

Hardy is moved by her story, and agrees to train her as a way to repay his debt to her brother.  When the latest immigration broker vanishes, Hardy gets them all enrolled in an English class run by Geetu (Boman Irani), hoping to earn a student visa. In class they meet meet Sukhi (Vicky Kaushal) who wants to get a visa as quickly as possible in order to rescue the woman he loves from an abusive marriage.  This means that the core cast includes a group of five friends, but one of them is in a wildly different genre than the others.  This will not be the only example of an uneven tone.

Balli passes the test, but everyone else fails.  Balli promises to look up Sukhi's love Jassi as soon as he reaches England.  He keeps his promise, but it's already too late; Jassi has taken her own life.  Sukhi is heartbroken, and immolates himself.  At the funeral, Hardy vows to get his friends to England, no matter what.  Rather than wait for a visa that may never come, they'll take the "dunki" route, hopping from country to country until they are smuggled onto British soil.

Up until now, the film has veered between charming comedy and Sukhi's tragedy; now it becomes a full-fledged drama.  The trip to England is brutal.  People die, including characters who were introduced earlier as comic relief.  As a former soldier, Hardy has to use violence to protect his friends along the way, but the violence isn't cool, it's brutal and unpleasant and leaves everyone involved shaken.  And yet there are some flickers of hope; Hardy manages to confess his feelings for Manu, and she loves him as well, though they want to stay focused on the journey until they reach their destination.

And then England, which is its own kind of brutal.  Balli hasn't been as successful as he lead the others to believe, and life as an undocumented immigrant is hard.  hardy finally manages to contact Puru Patel, who offers a few possible routes to legal status.  Trying to get Manu married to a British citizen is a disaster, though, so the only option left is to seek asylum, claiming that they will be persecuted by the Indian government if they try to return home. Hardy is a patriot, and he absolutely will not lie about his country, but he can afford to have convictions, since he's only in England for Manu.  The others have families to provide for, and they all claim asylum while Hardy is deported.

And then the flashback is over, we're back in the present, and the movie is a comedy again, with Hardy scheming to smuggle his friends back into an India which doesn't want them because of their asylum claim.  Mostly a comedy, that is, because Manu was in that hospital for a reason, and that's what's driving her to get back to Punjab before it's too late.

This is obviously a deeply political movie; it pretty much has to be, given the topic.   The film is very much on the side of the little people seeking an opportunity to provide for their families, and has a lot to say about a system which is designed to keep poor people out, and the brokers who take advantage of the desperate.  Shah Rukh gets a good speech, angry in the Terry Pratchett sense.

The tone here is wildly uneven, but that is not that uncommon in Bollywood, and writer/director Rajkumar Hirani's earlier films, such as the Munna Bhai franchise and 3 Idiots, also mix moments of joy with unexpected tragedy.  The cast makes it work, especially Khan.  This is an unusually disciplined performance for him, and there are no winking references to Khan's earlier films to remind the viewer that they're watching a big star.  Like Hardy, Shah Rukh stays focused on the moment until he reaches his destination.

Tough love.

 Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998) has a pretty typical setup for a nineties Shah Rukh Khan film, with hero Suraj forced to live with the family of his beloved Muskaan (naturally played by Kajol) in order to win over her uncle and overprotective brother, helping to solve the family's land dispute along the way.  However this is not a Shah Rukh Khan movie, it's a Salman Khan movie, and that makes a big difference.

Muskaan isn't just a love interest, of course.  She's a wealthy orphan, raised by her uncle, Ajay Singh Thakur (Dharmendra) and watched over by her fiercely protective and generally fierce older brother Vishal (Arbaaz Khan, Salman's real life brother).  Muskaan is both beautiful and wealthy, so she's attracted her fair share of gold digging suitors, but Vishal has always seen them off.  Since the suitors have been universally terrible, Muskaan is more amused than anything else.

Muskaan has dreams of her own, though, and after much preparation she finally convinces Vishal to let her leave the village and attend college in the big city.  He escorts her to the campus, glowers at the decadent students around him, lectures the college principal (Tiku Talsania), and then leaves.  And then someone steals Muskaan's bag.

The someone in question is Suraj (Salman Khan), who made a bet with one of his friends that he could get the beautiful new girl to chase him within five minutes.  Suraj makes a lot of bets, plays a lot of pranks, and fails a lot of classes, but he does seem to have a good heart.  Suraj apologizes, and Muskaan is quickly welcomed into his circle of friends, most of whom are broad stereotypes of one sort or another, including a tomboy who I would swear was a satire of Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, except that this movie came out months before KKHH.

It's possible that love is friendship in this movie as well; Suraj is certainly smitten, and Muskaan seems to be drawn to him as well, especially after learning his tragic backstory.  He confesses his feelings in a song, and she phrases her ambivalence in pretty much the worst way possible, singing that "In my reluctance hides a consent."  So they're sort of dating when Suraj spots her talking to a mysterious man, jumps to the wrong conclusion, and attacks him.  The mysterious man turns out to be Vishal; he beats Suraj soundly, warns him against trying to contact Muskaan again ever, and then drags his sister home.

However, Vishal doesn't notice Suraj riding the top of their bus.  Suraj finds the family compound, introduces himself to Vishal, apologizes for starting the fight, and announces his honorable intentions, then Vishal beats him up again and send him on his way.  As Suraj walks down the road, debating what to do next, he sees an accident and pulls Ajay Singh from the wreckage.  The two men talk, Ajay is impressed, and invites Suraj to stay at his compound.  They arrive during a convenient blackout, and by the time the lights switch back on Vishal has agreed to welcome his uncle's rescuer, while Suraj has agreed to do chores in order to earn his keep.

And at this point we're in very familiar territory.  Ajay Singh Thakur has no idea that Suraj is here to win Muskaan.  Vishal does, but Surj is a guest so he can't just be thrown out.  Suraj has to survive all of Vishal's "tests", win over his potential in-laws, make everyone's lives better, and unite Vishal with Ujala (Anjala Zaveri), the woman who loves him for some odd reason.  Meanwhile, Vshal needs to find a solid reason to kick Suraj out so he can marry her off to Vijay Singh (Nirmal Pandey), a long haired tough guy and nobleman whom he has just met.  

The problem is that this is early Salman Khan, before he had settled comfortably into his action hero persona.  Early Salman is trying to be charming, roguish, and most of all funny, but he expresses that through mugging for the camera, silly voices, and the occasional spontaneous Michael Jackson impression.  Suraj is not so bad when he's still at the college, but once he reaches the village and sets out on his mission to impress Vishal he seems to go out of his way to be as annoying as humanly possible.  I spent most of the movie rooting for the violent and weirdly possessive brother.

As for Kajol, sh's' always good.  She's a very natural actress, and gives her all in every scene I've ever seen her in, but her sparkling enthusiasm cannot cover for the spectacular lack of chemistry between her and Salman.  This was the only movie in which Kajol and Salman were cast as a romantic couple (apart from Salman's extended cameo in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, in which his lack of chemistry with Kajol was a plot point), and I am not surprised.  Shah Rukh's chemistry with Kajol is legendary, but her chemistry with Salman is not.  Turns out the casting makes a big difference.

Tiger 3: The One Without a Cool Title

 Pathaan established the Spy Universe as a genuine cinematic universe, weaving elements from the Tiger series and War into a more or less cohesive whole.  Tiger 3 (2023) has a different job - it needs to establish a direction for the new cinematic universe and find an easy way to distinguish the series' three renegade agent protagonists, all while telling an entertaining story and staying true to what people liked about the Tiger movies in the first place.

The movie opens . . . well, it opens with an extended and plot-relevant flashback, but I'll get to that later.  Then it cuts to a Bond style cold open action scene, as Tiger (Salman Khan) rescues his former handler and best pal Gopi (Ranvir Shorey) from the Taliban.  Tiger and Gopi have a complicated relationship; Gopi was last seen in the first Tiger move, Ek Tha Tiger, when he shot Tiger in an attempt to keep him from escaping with Pakistani agent Zoya (Katrina Kaif).  But Tiger isn't one to hold a grudge, and he rescues his old friend.  Gopi is wounded in the process, and before dying he warns Tiger that there's a mission being planned in Pakistan and that there's a mole helping the enemy: Zoya.

Tiger returns to his home in Austria and is reunited with Zoya.  Fortunately the "can Zoya be trusted" plotline doesn't last too long.  They've been married for years, and the question has come up in every movie so far.  The answer is always the same - yes, she can be trusted, as established by a quick musical number.

Tiger is satisfied and sets out on his next mission, traveling to St. Petersburg to extract one of Gopi's informants.  Naturally, there's an attempt on the informant's life, and the mysterious assassin removes their motorcycle helmet to reveal - Zoya!  She is the mole after all!  They fight, and it's close, but Tiger gets the upper hand, then is knocked out by a mysterious assailant.

Tiger wakes up bound to a chair, watching a projection of Zoya and Aatish Rehman (Emraan Hashmi), Zoya's former mentor in the ISI as established by the opening flashback.  Rehman has poisoned Tiger and Zoya's son Junior (Sartaaj Kakkar) in order to force Zoya to work for him.  He explains his very personal grudge against Tiger (it's complicated spy stuff, but Tiger had to shoot Rehman's pregnant wife Shaheen (Riddhi Dogra) while protecting a peace conference.)  He offers Tiger the same choice he offered Zoya - perform a mission for him and Junior gets the antidote, but otherwise the boy dies.  And Tiger immediately escapes, because when forced to choose between love and duty, Tiger will pick love every single time.

The couple are assigned to retrieve a briefcase from a locked vault in Istanbul, and suddenly the film switches to a heist movie.  Tiger recruits his old friend and tech expert Rakesh (Kumud Mishra) along with a pair of starstruck RAW agents, Zoya has a martial arts fight with a Chinese general (Michelle Lee) while dressed in a towel, the item is retrieved, and Tiger is captured and sent to Pakistan for trial.  This is bad, because the briefcase contains Pakistan's nuclear launch codes.  Suddenly Tiger and Zoya are the most dangerous terrorists in the world, disavowed by their hoke countries, and Tiger is sentenced to death.

Fortunately for Tiger, he's part of a cinematic universe now.  He's rescued by Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) and after a great deal of banter, even more shooting and an exploded bridge Pathaan flies out of the movie and Tiger goes underground in Islamabad, staying with his adopted son Hassan (Vishal Jethwa),  last seen in Tiger Zinda Hai.  

Of course Tiger's not done.  He and Zoya have to get the band back together, gathering supporting characters form the previous movies in order to foil Rehman, save Pakistan and clear their own names, pretty much in that order, and they have to do it by assaulting the Prime Minister's office.

Every installment in the Spy Universe has ramped up the level of action, and this movie finds a new top to go over, especially after Pathaan shows up.  Still, there's no shakey-cam, and the fights are kinetic and move at a good pace.  If you want to see a movie about Salman Khan punching absolutely everybody, Tiger 3 has you covered.

The movie also continues with the Spy Universe's running theme of the importance of human connection.  Rehman has lost his connection and fallen from grace, while Tiger and Zoya succeed because they have each other and genuine friends.  

And then there's the MCU style mid-credits scene, in which Kabir (Hrithik Roshan), the protagonist form War, is assigned to assassinate a mysterious enemy, setting up a Spy Universe Thanos and laying out the differences between the spies, boyband style: Tiger is the cool tough guy, Pathaan is the smart and funny one, and Kabir (who was the antagonist for half of his own movie) is the edgy bad boy loner.  It works.

Though I have to ask - when does Zoya get her name in the title?  She's been the co-protagonist for all of the Tiger movies, and Tiger's single-minded devotion to his wife is the most interesting thing about him.  It's past time Zoya got the credit she's due.

Archie Month: Mujshe Dosti Karoge!

Mujshe Dosti Karoge! (2002)  is another movie that follows the Archie formula, a love story about the girl next door, her glamorous friend, and a lovable doofus who neither one can resist..  Or at least it starts out that way, but this love triangle is decidedly lopsided.

The movie opens in the past, in Shimla.  Childhood friends Raj, Pooja, and Tina (Athit Naik, Nandina Seth, and Barkha Singh) form a sort of puppy love triangle: Raj has a crush on Tina, Pooja pines for Raj, and Tina mostly enjoys the attention.  But everything changes when Raj's father (Kiran Kumar) decides to relocate to London in order to get ahead of the dot.com boom.  Raj asks Tina to email him, and she agrees, though since her family doesn't have a computer, she'll do it from Pooja's house.  

After arriving in London Raj sends Tina a long message about his new life. She gets bored and wanders off halfway through, but Pooja finishes the message and writes back, signing Tina's name in order to fulfill her friend's promise.  They keep writing back and forth for fifteen years, sharing hopes and dreams and a mysterious tune that popped into Raj's head when he visited a church, but Pooja never manages to tell Raj that she's Pooja, not Tina.  At the end of fifteen years, Raj announces that he's returning home to Shimla, and they can see each other in person.  Raj (now played by Hrithik Roshan) and "Tina" decide not to exchange pictures because they believe they'll recognize each other right away.

Ever pragmatic, Pooja (Rani Mukherji) tells Tina (Kareena Kapoor) about the forged emails, though first she has to remind Tina of who Raj is.  Tina agrees to keep up the deception, and it's just as well, because at the train station Raj recognizes Tina immediately, walking straight past Pooja in order to talk to her.  He notices Pooja eventually, though, and the three friends settle in to the old dynamic, with Raj pursuing Tina and Pooja following along after, though this time Tina starts to fall for Raj as well.

The romance progresses, though occasionally Raj wonders why Tina is so different from her emails, and Pooja gently explains that meeting someone in person can be different from interacting with them online.  By the end of Raj's trip, he and Tina are nearly engaged, while he and Pooja have become close friends; Pooja promises that she'll always be there for him, he just has to close his eyes and think about her.

Back in London, back at work, Raj finds himself talking more about Pooja than Tina.  He closes his eyes and thinks about her, and there she is!  Tina is applying to a college in London, and dropped by Raj's office to say hello.  He shows her around London, and while visiting an old church, Pooja absentmindedly hums the tune he sent her all those years ago.  Raj finally realizes that Pooja wrote the letters and so it's Pooja that he loves.  She tries her best to sacrifice her love for Tina's sake, but after a romantic song they decide to return to India and tell everyone that they're getting married.

They arrive in India just in time for the funeral for Tina's father, who has died suddenly.  Tina is now officially an orphan and all alone in the world, but fortunately she's just about to marry Raj, and he'll take care of her, right?  Pooja's parents have stepped in to act as Tina's family and perform all the necessary arrangements.

Raj wants to tell the truth anyway, but Pooja stops him; she's determined to protect Tina at all costs, so she asks Raj to go through with the marriage for her sake.  Raj agrees, but with a condition: he shouldn't have to make the sacrifice alone, so he will only marry Tina if Pooja marries someone else on the same day.  Enter Rohan (Uday Chopra), Raj's old friend.  He's interested in Pooja, and she seems to tolerate him, which sounds like a great basis for a marriage.

My major complaint about Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is that Rahul and Anjali are entirely passive, depending on fate to get them out of their romantic predicament.  That's not the case here.  Instead, Raj and Pooja actively sabotage themselves at every opportunity, turning an awkward situation into a tangled mess that can only be resolved by divine intervention.

The Archie roots are clearly visible here, since the central triangle are all friends, and the movie spends a lot of time talking about the importance of that friendship.  However, unlike the other Archie-inspired movies we've covered, the narrative insists that there is a clear wrong answer.  Tina is not a bad person, but she is very much an early Kareena Kapoor character.  Despite the heart of gold, she's deeply spoiled, self-centered, over-dramatic, loud, and prone to sudden fits of anger.  And she has basically nothing in common with Raj apart from being friends with Pooja.

 Which is nonsense, of course.  Tina can be kind of annoying, but annoying people deserve love too.  And Pooja is the only one of the three leads willing to tell the truth about what she wants, which is pretty basic to a successful relationship.  She's also willing to confess about the letter sin public.  Pooja, on the other hand, lied to Raj for over a decade and is so sure that she knows what everyone else needs that she'll sacrifice everything without ever asking them if that's what they want.

The thrust of the narrative is that Raj and Pooja belong together, and they fight against their destined happy ending like heroes from Greek tragedy desperately fighting against fate.  It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Archie Month: The Archies

 The Archies (2023) isn't the first Bollywood movie to be inspired by Archie Comics, and it won't be the last, but for now it's the only one that's officially licensed.  Still, the movie has more to offer than just familiar character names.  There's a lot of style and a tremendous sense of place.

When rich girl Veronica Lodge (Suhana Khan) returns to her home town of Riverdale after two years in London, she's delighted to be reunited with her best pal Betty Cooper (Khushi Kapoor).  She's also intrigued by the idea of reuniting with Archie Andrews (Agastya Nanda), incorrigible flirt, aspiring musician, and former boyfriend.  It sounds like the perfect opportunity for an Archie-Betty-Veronica style love triangle, and that is exactly what happens, (It's right there in the title, after all.)

However, Archie's wayward heart isn't the focus of the movie.  Which is just as well, because Archie doesn't make a good impression during the first part of the movie; say what you will about Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, but Rahul would never forget Anjali's birthday, even if he was distracted by a date with Tina.  Archie tries to follow his heart, but his heart isn't very bright and he ends up kissing both girls in quick succession despite dire warnings from his level-headed (unless there's a hamburger involved) best friend Jughead (Mihir Ahuja).

But there's trouble in Riverdale.  Veronica's father Hiram (Alyy Khan) plans to buy up the businesses in the center of town, replacing them with a shopping center owned by him.  And his plan works, with basically no opposition; Veronica is briefly upset because Betty's father Hal (Satyajit Sharma) lost his bookstore, but Hiram arranges a new job for him, and helping the family of his daughter's best friend makes everything better, right?

However, that's not Hiram's only scheme.  He wants to build a luxury hotel, because every Bollywood billionaire tries to build a luxury hotel sooner or later, and he plans to build it in Green Park, the literal and figurative heart of Riverdale.  There's a local tradition that when a child turns five, they plant a tree in Green Park, so most of the town feels strongly rooted to the place.  There's no way the town council will approve a hotel in the park, so Hiram enlists Dawson (Vinay Pathak) to change minds by any means necessary, and to be the frontman so that the Lodge name is not attached to the project.

This is the sort of problem that will inevitably be solved by a group of plucky teenagers putting on a show, and there are plucky teenagers aplenty: Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead, of course, but also comedian and cub reporter Reggie Mantle (Vedang Raina), apprentice hairdresser Ethel Muggs (Dot.), nerd with a secret Dilton Doily (Yuvraj Menda), massive athlete Moose (Rudra Mahuvakar) and his tiny girlfriend Midge (Santana Roach).  In other Archie continuities Reggie is usually the foil, but here he's pretty much the moral center of the group, and is the one to discover the evil scheme in the first place.  Archie, on the other hand, requires a musical number performed by Miss Grundy's class before he starts to grow some political awareness, and it takes him a while to really dedicate himself to the cause.

Archie is an important character, and his narration acts as the barest whisper of a framing story, but the emotional core of the story is the relationship between Betty and Veronica; they might be rivals, but they're friends first, and Betty stands by her friend even when the rest of the gang suspects her of spying for her father, and the love triangle is resolved in an amicable and sensible way, without the need for Veronica to name her newborn daughter Betty and then conveniently die, leaving behind a stack of eight letters.

All that said, the real star of the show is Riverdale itself.  The Archie dynamic works really well when translated to a Bollywood setting, with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai being one of many examples, but making the movie a period piece and rooting it strongly in the Anglo-Indian community gives The Archies a tremendous sense of style and a cottage-core sensibility.  It's light, fluffy and utterly delightful.

That said, I am kind of baffled by the decision to make a movie about the Archie Comics characters, in which the band "The Archies" is an important plot point, and not have the band perform "Sugar, Sugar."  Maybe they're saving it for the sequel.

Archie Month: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai revisited.

 Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) opens with a death, which is an unusual choice for a romantic movie.  Tina (Rani Mukherji) succumbs to a fatal case of Bollywood Mystery Disease shortly after giving birth, leaving behind her grieving husband Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan), her newborn daughter Anjali, and a stack of eight letters, one for each of Anjali's first eight birthdays.  (And you may be wondering what a one year old is going to do with a letter, but I can assure you, this plot is going to get weirder.)

Eight years pass.  Rahul is a successful businessman, living with his mother (Farida Jalal) and Anjali (Sana Saeed) who is spunky, TV obsessed, and devoted to her dad.  They're mostly happy, but something is definitely missing, and Anjali feels her mother's absence keenly.  Still, it's her birthday, and she has one more letter to look forward to.  She opens it and discovers an extended flashback!

Tina writes about Rahul's college days at St. Xaviers, the Bollywoodest of Bollywood colleges, complete with quirky teachers, a cheer-leading squad, and intercollegiate music competitions complete with hand painted signs.  Young Rahul is . . . kind of a jerk, honestly.  He's a smug aspiring ladies man who wears a chain with the word "Cool" on it.  However, he has a best friend, tomboy Anjali Sharma (Kajol), and she keeps him somewhat grounded.  (Cut to Little Anjali looking surprised at the namesake she's never heard of.)

Rahul and Anjali are very close, though they fight a lot, especially after Anjali inevitably beats Rahul at basketball.  The other students at the college are weirdly invested in their friendship, though, and will perform a spontaneous musical number in order to get them to make up.  And then Tina appears.  Tina Malhotra, that is, Oxford educated and drop dead gorgeous daughter of the college principal (Anupam Kher), who has transferred to St. Xaviers as a favor to her father.

Rahul is immediately captivated by Tina, and tries being an enormous jackass in order to win her heart.  When that completely fails, he tries a different tack, announcing to a classroom that "Love is Friendship," that friendship is absolutely necessary for any romantic relationship to work.  That gets Tina's attention,and when he asks her to be his friend she says yes.  Unfortunately, his declaration also gets Anjali's attention, and she starts wondering if her feelings for Rahul aren't so platonic after all.  The Archie romantic triangle is in place.

Unfortunately for Anjali, it isn't much of a contest.  She's an awkward tomboy with no experience in matters of the heart, and her attempts to dress up and look pretty like Tina lead to humiliating failure.  Tina, on the other hand, is glamorous, worldly, and has a keen emotional intelligence that Rahul and Anjali both lack.  Tina suspects that there's more to Rahul and Anjali's relationship than just friendship, and she tries to talk to Anjali about it before seriously pursuing a relationship.  Even after Anjali's vague denials, she still feels that she's an interloper, but Rahul has no such doubts, and confesses his love.  Anjali is heartbroken, and after an emotional farewell to Rahul and Tina she leaves college and they never see her again.

Tina ends her story by saying that she knows Rahul is lonely now, and that she still feels terrible about coming between them, so she charges Little Anjali to find Big Anjali and finally reunite her with Rahul, which seems like a lot of pressure to put on an eight year old; she immediately recruits her grandparents to help, but it might have been better for Tina to ask her father in the first place rather than waiting eight years for her daughter to develop sufficient reading comprehension.  

Big Anjali, meanwhile, is older, more confident, and wears saris rather than gym gear.  She's engaged to Aman (Salman Khan), a businessman who is handsome, charming, sort of annoying, and utterly besotted with her.  Her mother (Reema Lagoo) has doubts; she knows that Anjali never got over Rahul, and that she isn't really in love with Aman, but Anjali is determined to go through with the wedding.  Thanks to literal divine intervention the actual marriage is delayed until December, so she goes to work at a summer camp in Shimla, run by the cheerful but buffoonish and Britain-obsessed Colonel Almeida (Johny Lever.)

Little Anjali learns about the summer camp by calling her namesake and listening silently until she hears something useful.  She and her grandmother enroll in the camp, the Anjalis meet and bond, and then the older Anjali discovers just who her new student is, and what happened to her friend Tina.  Then Little Anjali activates Phase II of her plan, calling her father and pretending to be sick so that he'll rush to the camp.  He rushes to the camp, sees both Anjalis together, and completely fumbles the reunion.  Little Anjali and her co-conspirators do their best to push the two together, old feelings resurface, new feelings start to boil over, and the pair are just about to confess their mutual love when Aman returns.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was writer/director Karan Johar's first movie, and the first step in his examination of increasingly transgressive love stories.  However, Rahul and Anjali are really not that transgressive; he's a widower and she's engaged to another man, but widowed men remarry all the time in Bollywood, and even Aman knows that she's just not that into him.  It's not like there's family pressure forcing Anjali to keep the engagement, either, since her mother clearly has doubts about the whole situation.  Everything could be resolved happily with five minutes of honest conversation, but instead Rahul and Anjali suffer in silence up to the very last minute, inspiring the people around them to make what Pretentious Movie Reviews calls the "Wow, Such Values Face", marveling at their stoic but pointless sacrifice.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai has been reexamined in recent years, and as a member of the Pretty In Pink generation I think that's healthy.  I don't agree with all of the criticism I've seen, but Rahul is kind of toxic at times, especially in his younger days, and the movie does stick to a very conservative idea of family structure, with Little Anjali needing a mother being one of the driving elements of the plot.  Rather than argue fine points, though, I will tell you why I think that Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is good, actually.

It goes back to Archie comics, which Karan Johar has said were a specific inspiration for the film.  For the Betty-Archie-Veronica triangle to really work, both of the potential love interests have to be viable choices; Pride and Prejudice doesn't fit the Archie model, for instance, because Darcy is good but stuffy while Wickham is charming but actually a monster.  More than that, like Betty and Veronica, Anjali and Tina are genuine friends, with a relationship that extends beyond Rahul.  When Anjali discovers the truth about Little Anjali, her first reaction is to take a moment to mourn her friend.

The plot is, of course, absolute nonsense, with a constellation of plot holes shining through the script.  But like many films of this era, the plot is just a vehicle for delivering emotions, and emotions abound.  Even at this early stage of his career, Karan Johar has a real knack for writing characters, and the actors chosen to play those characters are fantastic.  Kajol is the real standout here, conveying volumes of meaning just through facial expression; you can literally highlight the exact second when her heart breaks, in the middle of a joyous dance number, without a word being spoken.

The movie is a mess, but it's a wonderful mess.  Just don't take it as a guide to healthy relationships.