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‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ Love, Lost and Found

The hunt: In the film, which is set in numerous cities across Europe, Harry tries to help Sejal find her missing engagement ring

Aruna Harjani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, August 12, 2017

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‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ Love, Lost and Found

The hunt: In the film, which is set in numerous cities across Europe, Harry tries to help Sejal find her missing engagement ring.

The latest Bollywood release, Jab Harry Met Sejal, takes viewers on a travel spree across Europe with its renowned stars, Sharukh Khan and Anusha Sharma.

Once again, two of Bollywood’s most beloved stars, Sharukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, have been paired in a romantic movie.

They were previously seen in the one-sided love story of Jab Tak Hai Jaan, in which Khan plays a bomb expert and Sharma stars as a budding journalist. The strong chemistry between the two received highly acclaimed reviews.

Their first movie together, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, was also a romance.

In their latest pairing in Jab Harry Met Sejal, Khan stars as Harinder “Harry” Singh Nehra, a lonely tour guide who always hooks up with different women.

The twist comes when Sejal (Sharma) enters his life, demanding his help to find an engagement ring from her fiancé that she has lost. She even threatens Harry with filing a complaint against him to his boss, if he doesn’t help her find it. So Harry succumbs to her demand.

Throughout most of the film, director Imtiaz Ali, known for his hits like Tamasha and Rockstar, takes his audience to different cities across Europe in search for the missing ring.

The audience is entertained with captivating sceneries in places like Amsterdam, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Portugal.  

He also focuses on the character of the two leads, arming Harry and Sejal with humorous and witty dialog, rarely found in Bollywood movies. While this might slow the film’s progression slightly, the filmmaker somehow manages to keep his audience glued to the screen.

Although the sporadic flashbacks incorporated in the film make us understand Harry’s past, the script could have been written with a more enticing storyline than the cliché romance that Jab Harry Met Sejal has.

Audiences may wonder why a movie about finding a missing ring needed to be made in the first place, but on sitting through it, they may realize that it is about the characters actually finding themselves.

As they hop from one city to another, their true colors emerge.

However, the chemistry between Khan and Sharma was lackluster and dull. Each portrays the role as well as they have before, but the passion between them can’t be felt through celluloid. There’s simply no spark between the two.

Finding you: Harry (Shah Rukh Khan) shares a moment with Sejal (Anushka Sharma) in the movie Jab Harry Met Sejal.
Finding you: Harry (Shah Rukh Khan) shares a moment with Sejal (Anushka Sharma) in the movie Jab Harry Met Sejal.

Anuskha’s Gujarati accent is charming and adds a comic touch to her dialogs with Khan. However, Khan, with his reputation, certainly could have done better in some of the scenes. And I’m not sure if it’s the makeup, but he’s looking a bit too mature for Sharma in this film.

“Hawayein,” the magical love song composed by Pritam Chakraborty for the film and beautifully sung by Arijit Singh, is one element to be lauded.

The two stars may be a magnet for fans to come and sit through the film, but you won’t need a box of popcorn, because you will be too busy hopping from one country to another that it will leave you absolutely no time for snacking.

— Photos: Courtesy of Red Chillies Entertainment

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Jab Harry Met Sejal

(Yash Raj Films USA, 143 minutes)

Directed by: Imtiaz Ali

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Anushka Sharma, Evelyn Sharma, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Aru Krishansh Verma

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