U, Me Aur Hum

Posted by suchitabhhatia - 4 mnths ago
 Views 122









"Its a copy of the notebook," a friend remarked without seeing the film.

"How do you know?' I asked.

"What is there to know, I have read the book and it sounds the same," she said convincingly.

"How can you demean someone's work, without seeing the film
!" I said brashly. 

"You have heard, you have read, but you haven't see it, right?" I reiteraited.


Well, most of the people out there are probably like my friend.. some may have perhaps even seen the film and yet made a puerile judgement about U me and Hum, the directorial debut of  the action geek, Ajay Devgun. 

The comparisons are bound to happen, coz both the book and the film is about love and alzeimers, but the film on the whole is not  trite. The situations, the characters, the settings, the graph of the scenes, the look and style of the film, everything is individualistic. Infact I am appauld at Devguns' grasp of cinema language and its grammar. The scenes have been well thought of and executed as can be judged from the very beginning of the film- the credit titles, which are embellished with the quotes on love from Plato et al...very innovative indeed.

Slowly we are taken into the film, where a 50 year old man [ devgun] is being challenged by his son, to patao a women on a cruise. Devgun stops his eye on a woman, dressed in white saree, sans makeup, engrossed in reading the thornbirds. She could perhaps be 50 or more.  The audience obviously knows that she is Kajol and she is the wife of devgun, but what we don't know is how and why? That has been deftly handled by the debutant director.

He slowly takes us into the story, about when and how he met Kajol. How he tried to impress her by  gifting her what she wanted- the liquer chocolates, the white lilies, etc. The first half  of the film goes back and forth from the present to the past. The other characters, as  friends, give apt support to the narrative.  Everything is mushy mushy and going according to the wishes of the character, when just a few minutes before the interval, a sudden thud comes on your face..The three friends [devgun and gang] are driving through the rains of the city, joking and laughing and pulling each others leg when suddenly a women comes right infront of their car. That women is kajol, who is apprehensive and crying in the middle of the road.  She has forgotten her way to home. She had even forgotten theaddress and Ajay's cell number... That moment takes your heart away, and its just the beginning..

That very moment, you come to know has given birth to a filmmaker. 

The second half  narrative is more consistent in portaying the past, and Kajol's deteriorating condition, [without cutting to the present]  Second half  imagieries are very powerful- the shot of  their new born child drowning in water, that entire scene is very well executed and edited, the shot were Devgun sees his double image on the car bonnet signifying the way he is getting torn apart, the shot of the water flowing down the glass, and Kajol trying to touch it but she can't because the water is flowing down the other side.... the first day of the child at home,  where everybody is reciting a poetry and then singing...... until devgun discovers that Kajol is missing and finds her on the terrace where she has doesnot want to give birth to her child, she has forgotten that the child is already born, the scene where she is skipping while she is pregnant thinking that she has put on weight [ the sound desig n is excellent] the scene where she talks about alzeimer patients, and feels sympathetic towards them not knowing she is a patient herself....such small tit bits take the film and the sensibility of the director to a different level. His pattern of showing what happenned first, and then how it happenned also keeps the story pace taut, crisp and over the edge...


Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people- Indeed and very well handled.

Kajol is excellent so is  Ajay  as he convincingly portrays the lover boy, managing to break the oh so strong image of I can't just kill, but kiss too

A fresh breezy love story, U me aur Hum, reaffirms youe faith in soul mates and  love at first site.

The rhyming pattern in the dialogues are yet another innovation in the film. 

So don't wait, go out there and tell that person you love him or her, cause life may have a surprise for you, and others who don't have love should go and watch the film... reinstill your faith in love at first sight..