Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It did most of the things I expect from Bollywood ... good songs, good dancing, a ridiculously hot girl, and at least initially a petty and simplistic plot.
As the movie progressed, things got a lot more interesting and my hopes for the movie grew quite a bit as the husband character entered the picture.
At the end, however, I can't help but feeling this movie let me down. It seemed to me to be a poor exercise in rationalizing the custom of arranged marriages and therefore an exercise in rationalizing what is effectively institutionalized slavery (the transfer of property rights ... in this case the "property" being Aishwarya). At the end we have the female lead expressing such notions as "love means sacrifice" which may be true, and was indeed noble when the husband was trying to find Sameer for her (although I don't quite know why the husband thinks he "loves" her when in fact he didn't know her at all at that point. He just recognized she was good-looking) but in this case the notion of sacrifice is only used as a rationalization for why Aishwarya should be willing to take on the traditional subservient role to her father and husband. CLEARLY her love of Kahn must have been silly, vain, and wrong because she wasn't "sacrificing" in that case, but now that she's agreed to do what all the males wanted her to do in the first place it is only NOW that she really understands what love means (a lesson naturally taught to her by her "husband"). And plus, her husband isn't really such a bad guy after all, so why rock the boat ... right?
All pure rubbish, but I'm sure the people that feel arranged slavery is fine and dandy will have no problem sleeping at night after the twisted rationalizations that made it fine and dandy in this movie.
Also, the depiction of Italians was borderline racist, but that wasn't central to the plot so I'll leave that one alone ...
As the movie progressed, things got a lot more interesting and my hopes for the movie grew quite a bit as the husband character entered the picture.
At the end, however, I can't help but feeling this movie let me down. It seemed to me to be a poor exercise in rationalizing the custom of arranged marriages and therefore an exercise in rationalizing what is effectively institutionalized slavery (the transfer of property rights ... in this case the "property" being Aishwarya). At the end we have the female lead expressing such notions as "love means sacrifice" which may be true, and was indeed noble when the husband was trying to find Sameer for her (although I don't quite know why the husband thinks he "loves" her when in fact he didn't know her at all at that point. He just recognized she was good-looking) but in this case the notion of sacrifice is only used as a rationalization for why Aishwarya should be willing to take on the traditional subservient role to her father and husband. CLEARLY her love of Kahn must have been silly, vain, and wrong because she wasn't "sacrificing" in that case, but now that she's agreed to do what all the males wanted her to do in the first place it is only NOW that she really understands what love means (a lesson naturally taught to her by her "husband"). And plus, her husband isn't really such a bad guy after all, so why rock the boat ... right?
All pure rubbish, but I'm sure the people that feel arranged slavery is fine and dandy will have no problem sleeping at night after the twisted rationalizations that made it fine and dandy in this movie.
Also, the depiction of Italians was borderline racist, but that wasn't central to the plot so I'll leave that one alone ...