Movie Title: Student Of The Year
Star Cast: Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Siddharth Malhotra, Rishi Kapoor,Ram Kapoor, Sana Saeed, Kajol (cameo)
Director: Karan Johar
Producers: Karan Johar, Shah Rukh Khan
Music Directors: Vishal-Shekhar
Cinematography: Avananka Bose
Distributors: Dharma Productions, Red Chillies Entertainment
Genre: Drama
Movie Review:Sweet, Young & light-hearted K’Jo film
Movie Critique: Rachna Srivastava
Rating: 
Opening scene, saddened Rishi Kapoor, lonely, regretful and then hospitalized, a “forced reunion” bringing together old batchmates, enter four and hence begins the flashback narration. Ring a bell! A lil similar to Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, but here they narrate to each other reminiscing what happened 10 years back.
Enters Rohan Nanda (Varun Dhawan) singing “Papa Kehte hai” with a twist, “Who give the f*** Papa?” son of a business tycoon aspiring to be a rockstar, gaga over all hot chicks. The chicks even reciprocate to his charm. Then following, Alia Bhatt introducing herself as Shanaya, on “Gulabi Ankhein Jo meri dekhi” sang in her own praise, hinted that she has only knowledge about designers and shopping. All throughout the movie she is for the glam quotient and timely dialogues, which sometime do induce laughter. She is just love-greedy and confused between the two handsome guys all gaga over her. Now the third lad Abhimanyu Singh (Siddharth Malhotra) is termed “Kukkad” and he surely does “kaamal” by his acting skills. He is cute, handsome, manages to dance well and dialogues are delivered with perfection.
Karan Johor can do things which will surprise you, for example casting Rishi Kapoor in role of a gay who is all flat over his school coach (Ronit Roy). The musical extravaganza well deserves kudos. Dialogue department bags the trophy and the cinematography department doesn’t disappoint one at all. Vishal-Shekhar do make the music young and the songs bridge the way to young hearts. A commendable job done.
In terms of performances, Varun and Siddharth surely take away the whole screenspace and the script mainly revolves around them and their lives. Abhimanyu donning a middle-class tag around his neck is only fictional; in actuality at times he dresses even better than the spoilt lad Rohan Nanda, drives great cars, and radiates great oomph. Rohan (Varun)is always under-estimated by his dad, Ashok Nanda (Ram Kapoor) throughout the movie and that makes all go “oh” for the lad. Nevertheless, he is great at what he was offered; his dialogues flow naturally out of him, he has style and is nowhere behind Abhimanyu in terms of his oomph factor. He is a ladies’ man, has a hot girlfriend but still goes around with other girls.
The story was basically for two –Abhi n Rohan, but like Karan always does, has other characters come in to make it look big and realistic. Shanaya is not that much into the competition and lacks that competitive streak.Supporting them, Suddu, Jeet, Tanya and The whole idea of one competition in school, drifting emotions and creating rivalry and tearing apart their friendship is a weenie bit indigestible. Who finally bags the title and the trophy of “Student Of the Year”? For that watch the flick.
Life, Competition and friendship-Karan Johar said he laid more emphasis on these three and shot the movie. But Karan almost forgot that to have a school like St. Teresa’s High School, Dehradun (abbreviated as St.T’s ) is really like have freed Alice in the Wonderland. It’s everyone’s dream to be in a school like St.T’s where students wear designer clothes, drive fastest and latest cars, rarely attend classes, do Vellagiri in nighclubs with no drinking age inhibitions etc. The movie is great in itself but not totally realistic.
What will keep you hooked to the movie are the strong and young conversations, which are realistic and light and zippy. They have the youth connect; the lingos and impromptu replies are great. The “Ratta Maar” song is what today’s gen would totally relate to and brings to the forefront the plight of the students. Boman Irani singing “Kya Karu Haye Coach Coach hota hai”, Abhi’s “ab kiss toh nahi karega nah”, “Hospital tyoe kapde nahin hai mere paas” the massage scene on the beach etc, do tickle the viewers.
The surprise elements of the movie are : Rishi Kapoor playing “Dafli” and Kajol’s cameo in “Disco Deewane”. She looks hot in the black dress shaking her leg to the disco step. Disappointing that we dint get to see Shah Rukh Khan doing a cameo. All wished till the last scene that maybe this maybe the moment SRK might enter.But Alas! nothing as such happened.
The script falls weak sometimes and also seems over-stretched at certain points. The end is a bit exaggerated and the whole rivalry thing doesn’t exist for long years on petty issues in real life.
The movie is young in its content and is a watchable one, what keeps the zippiness up is the dialogues. Siddharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan shine with their acting skills and Alia Bhatt manages to carry off her role well.
Movie Details
After directing films that deal with serious issues like, ‘My Name is Khan’, ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’ etc, Karan Johar is finally returning to the kind of films that he does best. His fans and Bollywood lovers will all agree that no one could make another ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ like Karan did. So, to the sheer delight of all his fans, this famous director is returning with a film that is of the same genre as his above mentioned one.
The film will be the debut of three new faces in Bollywood. They are: Alia Bhatt, who is he daughter of the well-known filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra who is a newcomer and Varun Dhawan, who is the son of the reputed David Dhawan. Both the boys in the cast of the film already have experience in working with Karan as they were both assistant directors in his film ‘My Name is Khan’, starring Shah Rukh Khan.
Coming to the story of this much hyped film, it is based on the lives of three college students. Karan Johar assures that it will be a film filled with laughter and joy and excitement. Not only will this film be the kind that today’s youth will easily identify with, but it will also have the spirit and enthusiasm of an outing or a holiday.
KJo says that, stepping away from the kind of serious films that he has been making recently, this film is will be one that is ‘happy go lucky’ in every sense. There will be a lot of song and dance sequences too. Noting the fact that Vishal-Shekhar will be giving the music for this film, the audience will be expecting nothing but the best from them.
The film has a whole range of surprises lined up with respect to the cast as well. Even though this is Karan’s first film where the “Badshah’ of Bollywood would not be playing the male lead. Moreover, Rishi Kapoor will also be playing a rather unconventional role of a gay man in the film. When asked about it, the versatile actor, who has recently outdone himself in a negative character in ‘Agneepath’, stated that he cannot say no to Karan. Looks like Rishi Kapoor is finally getting those unconventional and challenging roles that he wanted.
After all this, there really shouldn’t be any doubt about how excited KJo is about this new venture of his. His recent tweets prove that the director is enjoying every moment of the making of this project that is so close to his heart. On top of that, since it is Karan Johar that we are talking about, the audience can fully expect that director to go to any heights to bring them only the best. So, till the date of release is finally announced, it will be a period of eager wait and anticipation for Karan’s fans and the whole of Bollywood. Let us hope that the film lives up to the hype that it has generated.
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