Bachna Ae Haseeno is another modern Yash Raj fare. It is a romantic comedy at first and then turns into a... romantic drama. The film centres around the character of Raj, played by Ranbir Kapoor. Divided into three episodes each one presenting his relationships with three different women in his life, Bachna Ae Haseeno has a far stronger second half, but overall it's just another clichéd take on modern relationships. The movie shows the character of Raj as a guy who does not really take anything seriously but it aims to portray his growing maturity in life, and it partially succeeds. The first chapter presents a rather ordinary counter train meeting. It is a very cheesy episode which takes a lot from such films as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Jab We Met and actually does it admittedly. The second one is another meaningless portion portraying his relationship with an ambitious yet selfless aspiring model, and the third chapter shows how he ultimately falls in love with probably the wrong girl - an independent young lady who, among other jobs, works as a taxi driver and sees marriage as an obstacle. The first two episodes show Raj breaking the heart of two different girls, and the third shows how a girl breaks his heart. His heartbreak motivates him to try and meet his ex-girlfriends and ask for their forgiveness.
As one can see, Bachna Ae Haseeno has a very unoriginal script. Not that it copies a certain film, but it just takes inspiration from so many famous romantic comedies that it really gets on one's nerves from time to time and looks very ordinary throughout. It also has many annoying references to previous Yash Raj flicks. The second half takes more shape but it's not without its flaws either. Expectedly, it unfolds in episodes, mainly two, in which the protagonist tries to atone for his sins and clean his conscience. The first episode with that girl Mahi is handled pretty well, but come on, why would a girl lose her faith in love because she was lied to by a jerk whom she knew for one sole day? The fact she even remembers him after 12 long years looks totally awkward. The second episode re-meets him with Radhika, who was deeply in love with him and was abandoned by him on the wedding day. She is now known as Shreya Rathod, a popular supermodel whose attitude has become most cruel, malicious and evil, something which reminisces of Meryl Streep's Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada. This sequence is far more credible and it is perhaps the film's most entertaining. And then, after doing what he so longed for, he goes back to meet the girl who broke and heart. What happens next is something I believe anyone can predict.
Bachna Ae Haseeno is traditionally made, with songs, emotions and moments of old platitude, but then again, it has its pluses. The soundtrack by Vishal-Shekhar is very good. "Khuda Jaane" is the best number - well composed, performed and visualised on-screen. The casting is quite okay. The script does not really require some great acting talents to begin with, so it's passable. Ranbir Kapoor is plain okay as the main lead. He is generally well cast, but he does not register the growth in his character with total conviction. This kind of a role would have suited perfectly someone like Saif Ali Khan, whose superb comic timing is matched by his ability to mature as a person throughout a film. Ranbir is just not there yet, and although he is confident, that too is overdone at times. The girls are mainly there to look pretty, and they definitely do. Minissha Lamba is vivacious and cute, Deepika Padukone is extremely pretty, but both get overshadowed by Bipasha Basu who is so amazingly attractive that at times it's hard to believe anyone could leave her like Raj did. It looks like she gets sexier with every film, but besides that, her performance is probably the film's most convincing. Despite its flaws, Bachna Ae Haseeno is not that bad a film and it has its moments, which make for quite a decent one-time watch.
