Raanjhnaa Hindi Movie Review

There is love: On the streets of a colourful Kaasi. For third generation Tamil pandit family in Kaasi Kundan (Dhanush), love is everything or atleast his love is. Boisterous, energetic, with a town filled innocence he is both street smart and caring. When he falls in love he is a teenager just coming to terms with his age. Zoya (Sonam) is still in school and is carried away by the adventure of romance and puppy love till academician Dad gets a scent of happenings and sends her packing to the city where grandma is running a strict household. Kundan takes to a fun filled life and is not academic. He is the object of the undying love of Rashmi (fine cameo by Shilpi Marwala) and has a man Friday in his friend Murari (Mohammed Jesham Ayub). He is eagerly hoping that his lady love Zoya would return. She does but with baggage. At JNU she has fallen in love with Akram (Abhay Deol miscast as a student leader) and seeks the assistance of Kundan to tell her parents. A heart broken Kundan announces that he would stay on and get them married and would also marry Rashmi the very day Zoya enters wedlock. On the day of the wedding, the twist in the tale occurs.
There is politics: Akram nurtures idealistic dreams. Like a typical student from the Jawarharlal Nehru University in the capital he is the fierce red flag bearing idealist who hopes that the politico-economic state of the country requires a huge change and he is carving out a space for himself there. Akram and Zoya are in love and with Zoya engaged in political street plays they have a lot in common. Things don’t pan out as planned. Soon we have Kundan coming to the Delhi campus and first a beneficiary of life there and then a victim of higher level politics.
What makes the film worth watching is among other things the change of gears and the backdrop of the narration. The Benares part is colourful, vibrant, energy filled and openly honest. The Delhi scenario in contrast is schematic, egocentric, dark and even vile. In the centre of these two worlds is Zoya. Surprisingly, a role that calls for great balance and subtlety is finely translated to screen by Sonam in what is truly her best performance till date. Giving her great company is the energetic Dhanush. It is obvious that the filmmaker chose him not just for novelty. His casting is perfect. He is effortless as the man who grows from a school kid to a crafty politician. Abhay Deol is his usual self but wasted in the context of the film. Even the support cast add a lot of sincerity to the tale. Mohammed Jesham Ayub as Murari is specially worth mentioning.
Aanand Rai through Raanjhana seems to weave a tale of two cities (may be a town and a city) and like Dickens state:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
We had everything before us, we had nothing before us….