Kedarnath film review: Tepid but sweet

Gulf News

You expect a good love story to sweep you off your feet and flood you with emotions that stir your core. While director Abhishek Kapoor’s sweeping romance ‘Kedarnath’ doesn’t rock your world, this tale of star-crossed lovers won’t leave you unmoved either.

Transcript

00:00Hi, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News Tabloid and last night I went for the screening of Kedar Nath

00:11Directed by Abhishek Kapoor. It's a star-crossed love story

00:16Between Mukku and Mansoor Khan. Mukku is played by Sara Ali Khan who makes her debut with this film

00:23And then there's Mansoor Khan played by Sushant Singh Rajput. He's relatively more experienced

00:29actor

00:30Now there are some love stories that shake you to the core. Who doesn't love a good love story?

00:35But this one leaves you slightly unmoved

00:38but it's not because of for the lack of trying because you can see that both Sara Ali Khan and

00:44Sushant Singh Rajput have tried in earnest to cook up this to bring alive this love story about rebellion about

00:52Interfaith relationship and the resistance they face while it's great on paper

00:57It somehow does not translate well on screen. The movie opens by introducing us into this picturesque

01:04Spiritually charged town called the Kedar Nath temple. So there is

01:09Mansoor Khan played by Singh whose job is to transport people

01:14Physically by carrying them on their back

01:18To the feet of the temple. Now, he's a Muslim lad and the movie also shows him as this eternal ray of sunshine

01:26He is one of the person who's like everybody is ready, you know, this movie showcases the religious divide not so subtly

01:34In the beginning you have a very pious old Hindu lady refusing to be transported by a Muslim lad

01:41She can't walk but she says that I would hate to be transported by a man from another religion

01:47But here you have Mansoor Khan who just wins her over with his charm and relentless sweetness

01:55it's not wholly unbelievable, but Sushant Singh Rajput somehow manages to add a bit of

02:01Believability into it just through his acting prowess. Now there is Sara Ali Khan

02:05This entire movie is a showcase to show her range of acting. There is a song there is a dance

02:12There's emotion. There's a crying scene. There's a self-destructive suicide scene everything to showcase how good a talent she is

02:19It's almost like it should have been named just Sara Ali Khan ideally

02:23And not Kedarnath because all focus is on her and the camera lovingly explodes at every angle, which is good. Thankfully

02:31Sara Ali Khan has enough heft also to demand that kind of attention

02:35She's got an arresting screen presence when she is on the screen

02:39You just notice her which is very good for a newcomer because not all newcomers can boast of that

02:44Although she's very raw in the emotional scenes most of the scenes of romance of singing dancing. She gets it, right?

02:49So I think a star has been born here, of course

02:53But the first half moves at a very languid pace now

02:56You have to be you know

02:57You have to sit tight and wait for the actual action to happen in the second half

03:01The problem the second half is the last 20 minutes are very turbulent

03:05You have like a flood hitting this village this tiny Hamlet and how it's the biggest level of how a mother

03:12Nature unleashing its fury is the biggest leveler in the world

03:16It's about how a triumph of human spirit and how people come together irrespective of whether they're Muslims or Hindus

03:23You know the core of the issue is kind of sweet

03:25But the problem is they save the best for the last and by then it was too late to you know

03:31To lift this movie that was drowning in in a typical love story, which you have already seen before

03:37I mean I can think of so many films that have explored this

03:42You know this path of two forbidden lovers

03:45Resisting the world going against their parents and their wishes, etc

03:49So they you know, this movie does not offer anything new in that respect what it offers though

03:57Which is quite refreshing is to see the scenes of flood. It's like the perfect storm

04:02Director Abhishek Kapoor has done a great job of actually bringing those scenes of fury and you know

04:09Nature's fury alive and the whole destruction is well

04:12Brought out but not much attention has been given to those parts because I think

04:18director preferred melodrama to actually show showcasing the kind of

04:23Destruction that a flood unleashes and how it's the biggest leveler

04:26So in a way that is one of the biggest failures of the film where they concentrated a lot on the love story and not on

04:32the actual

04:33Floods, although it says is inspired by true events. There's very little focus on that

04:38I have gone with 2.5 out of 5 for my full review. Go to gulfnews.com slash tabloid

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