"Love is friendship."
Hello everyone!
No, I don't particularly care if this bothers anyone.
I'm finding it hard to get back into any other movie because these ones are just so entertaining for the most part, and also visually stunning! To say nothing of the acting chops on these stars, DUH.
So I'm slowly working my way through the list I've accumulated on Netflix so that I can confidently say I've seen everything that needs seeing.
Which does of course mean I VERY often run into none others than Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, who seem to have been everywhere in an era of Hindi cinema that people look back on with fondness and nostalgia.
Without further ado, let's hop right into tonight's installment, then, titled Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
KKHH loosely translates to 'Something happens', and it's preeeeetty much the tagline for this entire schtick, honestly.
Rahul (Khan) is seen attending a funeral, and we learn that his wife passed away after giving birth to their daughter. We ALSO learn she left eight letters for her daughter, named Anjali, to be given to her every year on her birthday, and through these letters we learn what's happened as we flash to the past:
Tina (Mukerji, btw) is the new student arriving at the college where Rahul and Anjali (Kajol), his best friend, reign supreme, to the point that when they fight, the whole school is like PANIC! PANIC! MAKE SURE THEY MAKE UP!!!
Tina's the headmaster's daughter, mind, and beautiful where Anjali is tomboyish (the film goes heavy on the emphasis of this difference, making sure Mukerji is always in high heels and done to the nines whereas Kajol is in Adidas outfits and sneakers most of the time). Rahul, who flirts with anything that walks on two legs with a pulse and is female, obviously falls for her hard, which is where things start getting complicated.
Anjali realizes she's jealous - and that she's in love with Rahul. Tina, of course, is also falling for Rahul through raking him over hot coals and not just dropping to her knees to worship the god he is like everyone else.
At one point there's a scene where Anjali attempts to "make herself as pretty as Tina", earning the laughter and cruel teasing from the rest of campus, and only Tina goes after her to console her. Rahul needs a beat to follow the girls, because, obviously.
Anyway, by the time Anjali's read to confess, Rahul is ready to confess, too - to Tina! So Anjali, with a broken heart, packs up and heads back home, leaving only a scarf for Tina to keep heading into her new life - and Tina knows she's come between two best friends, but she loves Rahul, too, so it's a complicated situation.
And now she's gone, leaving only her daughter Anjali behind, and she and Rahul are pretty much BFFs as he pours every bit of his love into the little girl.
Then the little girl learns about who she was named after, the story behind everything, and decides to go to the summer camp where Anjali teaches dance, despite the fact dad initially says no. Grandma's like, you know what? We'll go and he'll follow us, and maybe we can make this happen. Grandpa, Tina's father, agrees and helps plot this scheme, because in the end, all he wants is for Rahul to be happy, and obviously that was what Tina wanted, too.
The adult Anjali, meanwhile, has definitely GROWN. UP. She's definitely not a tomboy anymore, and not averse to the more feminine aspects of life, getting a serious glow up and is also getting engaged to Aman (Salman Khan) in an arranged marriage that her mother is VERY happy about, but Anjali is kind of just going through the motions. Still, she's loyal if nothing else, and she also says she's doing the summer camp one last time because they expect it of her.
That's where she meets Anjali, and it's at this point viewers realize she does not, in fact, know Tina's dead. She learns it when she figures out Anjali's Rahul's daughter, and it breaks her heart.
Which is, of course, when Rahul shows up on scene again, in a camp that previously didn't really allow for adults outside the camp chaperones, but now Rahul AND his mom are there to help with activities, and it becomes clear as day both Rahul and Anjali have feelings for each other that go way, WAY beyond friendship.
It all comes to a head during a rainy night, a gazebo, and a stolen dance, after which Aman pops up like an unwanted jack-in-a-box, and takes Anjali back home with him to prepare for the wedding. Rahul returns her scarf to her as a token of good luck, but of course it doesn't end there.
Anjali's mother, who's now fearful of the wedding because she just knows it won't make her daughter happy, tries her best to figure out what to do, but it isn't until the actual wedding when Anjali's walking to her groom crying big, fat tears, that everything falls into place.
See, prior to this, Anjali junior has actually tried dissuading Aman from marrying her namesake, and Aman now clocks into the fact that Anjali does not, coincidentally, love him. Because he's a good guy, he drags her over to Rahul and is like you know what, you two idiots, you might just TALK this stuff through so you don't stay unhappy for the rest of your miserable lives!
He realizes Anjali's great love is and always will be Rahul, but because of her loyalty and sense of right and wrong, she would have gone through marrying Aman as she'd given her word. He respects her for that, but since he does care, he wants her happy.
All's well that ends well, and Rahul and Anjali get married on the spot with everyone watching and happily celebrating their union, including Anjali junior and Aman.
And in the background, Tina's ghost smiles, and finally passes on, knowing her daughter achieved what she'd set her on a course to do.
Only, Tina, your daughter was EIGHT YEARS OLD, how the HELL did you know she was gonna pull this one off?!?
Charming, musical, and of course filled with that SRK-Kajol magic, KKHH is definitely one of the high-ranking old school Bollywood movies, although I will admit that you can definitely see a pattern of behaviour and acting, at least in SRK, who seems to have portrayed a very similar character through those late 90s - early 2000s movies.
That aside though, the title song is literally stuck in my head like an earworm, so I can't really say it's a bad thing!
The movie's got grace, it shows schools in that era quite well fashion-wise, and it certainly gets your blood pounding as you wonder when Rahul and Anjali are actually gonna sit down and TALK ABOUT THINGS.
Since this is Bollywood, you can wait until the end of time, but they do resolve everything obviously.
So if you've got 3 hours to spare, you can absolutely watch this and be thoroughly entertained. Also because Salman Khan DANCES in this one, as in REALLY. DANCES. Having watched some of his recent performances and then KKHH, my jaw was on the floor at what he was doing. Like ... WHAT HAPPENED, SIR.
Ahem.
Definitely recommend!
xx
*images and video not mine
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