Fun loving, happy-go-lucky Arjun Khanna (Vivek Oberoi) believes in the tried-and-true tradition of arranged marriages. And why not? It worked well for his father and his grandfather and so on. His battle cry is "love and defeat are not part of my vocabulary!" So even though he loathes losing whatever competition he enters, he's perfectly fine with any girl his parents pick for him to wed. Diya Malhotra (Aishwarya Rai), on the other hand, is more romantic and strongly espouses the notion of marrying strictly for love.
These two opposing forces soon collide when Diya comes to study in Mumbai and stays with the Khannas, Arjun's father being an old crony of Diya's father. At first, Arjun and Diya annoy each other (with Arjun doing most of the annoying), then later become fast friends. Diya finds herself falling in love with the clueless Arjun, who doesn't yet reciprocate her feelings. Diya packs up and heads home in tears. If there were an intermission, it would be at this point of the film.
The opening minutes of the film's second half is disconcerting. It gets underway with the intro of Uncle Raj (Amitabh Bachchan), who has an impish, childish sense of humor, which he puts to good use in his dealings with the kids of the orphanage he runs. A fair amount of time is focused solely on his character and his orphans and all I kept thinking was "Where are Diya and Arjun?" But things get back on track once Diya reappears. The orphanage, it seems, is where Diya spends a good portion of her time, now that she's back home. But can she manage to forget Arjun? And can Arjun be far behind? Will love win out? Or will something else happen to jeopardize these two people's happiness? And just how did Uncle Raj's tongue and teeth get all blue?
Kyun! Ho Gaya Na... is an easy going romantic comedy, with the last half hour or so finally giving over to a more somber tone. I'm in love with Aish so I never have anything bad to say about her (when I have a baby girl I'm naming her Aishwarya; heck, if I have a boy I'm naming him Aishwarya). No one can roll her eyes or well up in tears or dance like her, although she might stop with the winking. But Aish pulls off that next-door girl persona exceedingly well, for someone with her jaw-dropping looks. Vivek Oberoi is a good-looking chap with a devilish nature and he's mostly good, considering his character is infinitely juvenile. Some of the pranks he pulls on Aish are borderline mean and definitely insensitive. And later on in the film, he overdoes the hurt puppy, doe-eyed act. Amitabh Bachchan is a bit offsetting here, one minute mischievous and playfully spraying the orphans with water pistols, the next minute acting the stern and wise elder. But he's the great Amitabh Bachchan so I guess he knows what he's doing.
The songs aren't bad. There's a song (Dilwalon Suno...) in which Mr. Bachchan actually shows he doesn't have two left feet (unlike in Bunty Aur Babli's Kajra Re). The one I like the most is No No Tum Kisi Pe..., a number done with an R&B/hip-hop flavor, which has tight choreography and really showcases Vivek and Aish's great dancing. A pretty interesting one is Pyar Mein..., which is the first song and reveals the two leads' feelings about love and marriage.
There are 2 discs in this edition. The primary disc, of course, has the film and director Samir Karnik's film commentary. The bonus disc contains some nice extra feature goodies: some deleted scenes; cute out-takes; a making-of-the-film segment; 25 bonus songs (most of which are gleaned from other Aish flicks, one of the songs being the famous Aish-Madhuri dance-off Dola Re number from Devdas); and a very cool, informative music release segment, which was a movie promo done in front of a huge audience - with the actual singers performing live one of the musical tracks (No no Tum Kisi Pe...) and which had Aish and Vivek dropping in and dancing in person (and later being interviewed, along with the director). All in all, a very good bang for your buck. I give it 3 and half stars.
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