The message to Suri is simple. Lose the metaphors. Kill the background score. Go easy on the explanations. Cut your script by half. And most importantly, trust your audience’s intelligence and their ability to digest modern notions of emancipation and gender equality without building a ridiculously elaborate case for it.

Love triangles are not terribly original. And bad dialogue never helped any film. HAK is guilty on both counts. The only reason one would get through the two hours of this film is on the efforts of the actors or by praising the idea of themes dealing with love and the fallible nature of people. Not too much on offer for a big ticket movie.

‘Hamari…’ is a ham-fest that wallows in the kind of melodrama that Hindi cinema left behind a while ago, only shot with such lens flare much wow. It is difficult to see actors of Balan and Rao’s stature plod through a script that’s this clichéd and take it seriously, resulting in career-worst performances from both of them.

The 150-minute story shifts from being modern, to being regressive. To being pointless.

This is a journey of pain: the pain of watching the talented Balan struggling to justify a badly-written role; the pain of seeing the director of Arth stuck in a time warp and refusing to grow out of a poor-me syndrome; the pain of watching Bhatt kill the memorable Kahaani girl of Ooh La La land with the that mighty Indian weapon: the mangalsutra.

Mohit Suri, who has progressively lost control over his craft, is only a step away from fashioning moving pictures out of illustrated music albums.
As gratingly mediocre as Ek Villain was, this is easily Suri’s worst film.

If you’re a sucker for slushy romantic films like Aashiqui 2, Ek Villain etcetera, Hamari Adhuri Kahani might make you weep like a baby. For the rest of us, there are so many better things to do this weekend.

The actors are left out to dry, though Rao manages to escape with some of his dignity intact. The same cannot be said of Hashmi (who gets the worst lines) or Balan (who looks like she’s trying too hard). At one point, overcome by gratitude, Vasudha touches Aarav’s feet. I don’t think I’ve laughed more at a movie that wanted me to be crying along with it.

The director tries to restore the gravitas, the pathos that we associate with romance and takes on the deep-seated patriarchy along the way.

…could still have an audience considering the lady sitting next to me was sobbing during the climax, but given how the three youngsters sitting in front of me were constantly on their phone, it is perhaps a story that would have been best left untold.

…this film fails to match the expectations it created after the release of the trailer and it should be watched by those who like cheesy dialogues and a lot of shedding of tears.

Passionless and pathos-ridden ‘Hamari Adhuri Kahani’ struggles to show the love…