Nothing that Ajay Devgan has done in the past
prepares us for the poise, poignancy and sensitivity
of his directorial debut. "U, Me Aur Hum" is one of
those tender and tactile melodramas that leave you
with minty thoughts and dewy eyes.
The heart is completely at the right place as Ajay,
turning director with a élan that thumbs its nose
gently at all those who scoff at his actioner's
antecedents, tells the story of a husband whose
gentle ministrations take his Alzheimer's stricken
wife from her absentminded youth to blanked-out old
age.
The journey gives us insights into the man-woman
relationship and the intricate commitments of a
marriage as seen through the eyes that go beyond the
romance and excitement of courtship to an area where
dark clouds gather over a relationship and threaten
its annihilation.
The trick, says Ajay's soft but persuasive film, is
to hold on, to value the things that make life worth
living. There is an interesting reversal of the
age-hold cinematic formula where the husband is
looked after by the wife through rain and shine.
Ajay plays the caring husband who wins the feisty
(if it's Kajol it cannot be any other way) waitress
on a cruise that seems to go on and on and on.
Luckily, the narrative doesn't get 'see' sick. To be
sure, the film could have avoided a prolonged
courtship that tells us nothing more about life than
what we don't already know in the first 15 minutes.
Ajay gets to the point halfway through. The
narrative quickly comes to grips with the theme as
the solemn doctor (Sachin Khadekar) announces the
absent-mindedness, which has been stalking Pia for a
while, is actually Alzheimer's.
The realisation of the gravity of the illness,
coming to terms with it and finally recognizing the
reality of an unshakeable love and faith beyond the
obvious hardships of a troubled compatibility....
these are themes that are given a surprisingly low
key treatment by the first-time director.
Ajay's directorial speciality is the interweavement
of the characters through some wittily and cleverly
written dialogues (Ashwin Dheer), which always tell
us more than what we hear.
The film's substantial emotional impact depends
entirely on the performances, not just Ajay and
Kjaol but their two sets of friends - Sumeet
Raghavan and Divya Dutta as the constantly
quarrelling divorce bound couple, and Karan Khanna
and Isha Sharwani as the soon to be wed couple.
Sumeet is a special revelation. He's quiet and
attentive in scenes that require him to be that.
But of course the chemistry between the lead players
guides the destiny of this remarkable film. Kajol's
powerhouse performance, punctuated and italicised by
moments where she hungrily sinks her teeth into
emotional depths seldom afforded to commercial
actors, comes as no surprise.
However, her makeup sometimes gives her a caked
look. Never mind. This is a film where we can easily
look beyond the mask.
Ajay bowls you over. To find him measuring up to his
wife's dizzying histrionics is an amazing
experience. Jim Broadbent looking after his
Alzheimer's-stricken wife Judi Dench in "Iris"
couldn't have done better.
One sequence in the restaurant where Ajay is
required to give a long, bitter and ironical
monologue on man's innate selfishness after he
leaves his wife at a care centre, will stand out
among the sincerest expressions of the human ego
seen in cinema.
Ajay's command over his craft and the language of
heart take you by surprise.
Some of the sequences showing Kajol's mental
blanking-out are so vivid they make your hairs stand
on end. That nerve wracking moment when the mother
nearly ends up drowning her baby in the bath tub or
that poignant interlude when the husband leaves his
wife at the hospital are so wonderfully devised and
executed you wonder which came first: the thought to
make a film on Alzheimer's or the characters who
inhabit this dark yet uplifting theme.
The film has its flaws. It sometimes tries too hard
to be trendily philosophical in its dialogues and
ends up sounding phoney.
The pseudo-philosophical lyrics for the songs sound
like cheap rip-offs of Gulzar. Also, the narrative
doesn't seem to follow the linear path.
The back-and-forth editing pyrotechnics where key
incidents are recreated in flashy flashbacks are
distracting. However, Aseem Bajaj's cinematography
does much to create a smooth homogenous look and
mood for the narrative.
The film takes us through a world of love pain and
acceptance with such transparent honesty of purpose
that at the end of it you only wonder one thing...
why can't more movies be like "U, Me Aur Hum"?.
