The girl is from a wealthy and powerful family and appears gung-ho about life. If you do not allow yourself to be sucked into their lives you may find the plot-line dreary because you cannot connect with the alternating misery and happiness of the main leads. Being on the run is not used as an excuse to showcase scenery but knowingly used as a tool to allow the individuals who are hurting from deep within to unravel themselves.
The protagonist Alia lands up, in a sequence of events, on a road journey with her apparently malicious perpetrator. It is the ability to see beauty as much in a whole row of dilapidated trucks lost in time as in a snow laden country racing by, or taking the road less traveled alongside a river with virgin gurgling waters. It is about loving your country well enough to make it appear more alluring than a dozen other over rated countries. I bit my lips praying that the wonderful songs by ARR were not tucked into the screenplay to pop up jarringly to justify themselves. The opening kidnapping scene takes you back to Roja, when another master Mani had led you to the hills and captured them with the camera caressing nature careful not to pollute it with attention too much. Just microscopically short of being a marvelous and a great movie.
Having been drunk on the heavenly music of the movie by Maestro A R Rahman and after practically selling Pataka Guddi to everyone who wanted to hear, the wait for the movie was finally worth it. He evoked a classy sense of humor in Love Aaj Kal and then I watched with disconcert not sure if I had liked RockStar. The surprises at every corner of the road traveled by Shahid and Kareena were absolute delights.
I almost stood up when I first saw Jab We Met. Dating back to an interaction two decades back.