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Home > Bollywood Movie Reviews > U Me Aur Hum UMAH Review - Moving Movie By The Debutant Director APK | April 17, 2008 Rating: ***.5 (***** Very Good, **** Good, *** Fair, ** Average, * Bad) User comments Action: Jay Singh Nijjar. Background Score: Monty Sharma. Choreography: Ashley Lobo-Ganesh Acharya. Cinematography: Aseem Bajaj. Costumes: Anna Singh-Manish Malhotra. Dialogues: Ashwin Dhir. Editing: Dharmendra Sharma. Executive Producer: Vikrant Sharma. Lyrics: Munna Dhiman. Mixing Engineer: Leslie Fernendes. Music: Vishal Bharadwaj. Production Designer: Sameer Chanda. Screenplay: Robin Bhatt-Shantanu Gupta-Akarsh Khurana. Sound Design: Rakesh Ranjan. Co-producer: Kumar Mangat. Story, Producer & Director: Ajay Devgan. Presenter: Eros International. Banner: Devgan Films. Release Date: 11th March, 2008.  Mush used to work always when there were big stars and big budgets irrespective of the story (all of Johars and many of the Chopras's flicks), but that era is fading away. Now there needs to be something solid and substantial to bank on, with the mush being just one of the factors in the movie.In U Me Aur Hum, Kajol suffers from the terrible disease of Alzheimer's, which is portrayed with a mixture of reality and sappiness. But it works, because the real perspective isn't always the best or the nicest perspective to take. The first half is full of Ajay wooing Kajol and the second half shows how the couple copes with the disease. Ajay Devgan's directorial debut is good, his direction style unique in his own way, a blend of several things. Plot Piya is a waitress on the cruise Ajay and his friends are traveling on. Ajay falls in love with her, reads her diary and is all she wants her potential lover to be. She reciprocates and he tells her the truth about himself after a brief and romantic courtship. Piya returns after a bout of indignant annoyance at being cheated, and they unite in holy matrimony. That's when Piya gets pregnant and her memory losses lead to a doctor's consultation-where Ajay, himself a psychiatrist, realize that his wife suffers from Alzheimer's, a disease that leads to memory losses. Story, Screenplay and Direction The first half is cleverly kept light, with two couples hovering in the background, one (Divya Dutta & Sumeet Raghavan) unhappily married and the other (Isha Shervani & Karran Khanna) 'happily unmarried'. There is some humor, lots of romance and even more mush. There are some juvenile bits, especially the diary, but the movie really starts in the second half. There are some scary moments which really make you realize how tough it is, and how helpless a state the patient is in, and the effort of dealing with a patient in the family. It's a story about one couple, and that's the important thing to remember while watching U Me Aur Hum. It is not a general statement on the condition. Like Aamir Khan in his directorial debut choose a subject like Dyslexia, Devgan chooses another sensitive and less explored subject (especially in Hindi cinema) and deals with it with a fragile and sensitized hand. And there is his victory. A lot of close-ups, slow motion frames and slowing the pace down in the most crucial scenes is Ajay's style. There is a sniveling audience to his story, as his character in the movie narrates his story. By the end of the movie, even if his real audiences are not weeping into their kerchiefs, he's sure to have touched their heartstrings. Little moments make the movie what it is, and that's where the magic of the creator lies-in the detailing.  Performances Both the roles of Ajay and Piya are dream roles for capable actors and Ajay and Kajol give it their best shot, which is pretty good to say the least. Ajay has that characteristic drawl forever, but he excels in some scenes. Kajol proves why the audiences love her still, and will do so for a long time. She is simply superb, convincing and somehow, miraculously, non-melodramatic in such a role. The two couples are good, although they hover in the background and mere fillers and used to give a contrast with their seemingly 'normal' lives. Sumeet Raghavan, a TV actor, is especially good in the foursome. Sachin Khedekar as a doctor who insists on sending Piya to the care facility is convincing.Song and Dance Vishal Bharadwaj's music is not as powerful as his previous movies like Maachis or even Omkara. But it is good nevertheless. Bottom-Line The subject is interesting and touching at once, and needs sensitive handling. Devgan does so, and the movie is as entertaining as it is moving. |