Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna: The most underappreciated look at adultery in Bollywood

By: Joshua Thomas

Sitting in the theatre to watch Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK), remains one of my most memorable movie experiences. Even though I was just 6 years old, I was blown away by the visuals and the music, plus anything with Shah Rukh Khan excites the Bollywood fan in me. I was too small to understand the complexity of the subject matter presented at that time, but in the years to come, I have watched KANK quite a few times, and it is one of those films that gets better with every watch, because of its great treatment of its subject matter.

The plot is fairly simple. Dev (Shah Rukh Khan) is married to Rhea (Preity Zinta), his college sweetheart. Maya (Rani Mukherjee) is married to Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan). Both Dev and Maya are unhappy in their respective marriages, so they strike up a friendship to help save their respective marriages. But, when this friendship blossoms into love, it brings with it a whirlwind of turmoil.

Karan Johar’s oeuvre of Bollywood had always consisted of candy-colored romance films, so it was a surprise when he decided to make a movie about adultery. Casting Shah Rukh Khan, who was the poster boy of true love, was a masterstroke to help sell this difficult subject matter. Karan’s treatment of the sensitive subject matter was lauded by critics, along with Niranjan Iyenger’s dialogues, which helped to bring a sense of realism and imagery to the words spoken. KANK also boasts of one of Karan’s most well-written scenes, which is the bench scene. Every word that is spoken and every nuance sets up the core of the two protagonists. Karan also writes a few more gems, such as the ballet scene and the interval block, which just prove his capability as a writer more than a director.

I also loved that Karan decided to show us real people for a change. Dev is easily one of Shah Rukh Khan’s best performances. Before this, we never really saw an angry, bitter side of Shah Rukh in a film, but in KANK, he shines like a diamond, showcasing his rage, jealousy, and compassion, sometimes with a single look. He makes us hate Dev and empathize with him at the same time, a man who has only been wronged in life, who finally finds someone to share his pain with. Equally compelling is Rani Mukherjee. Her character, Maya, has so many emotional scars that are slowly revealed throughout the course of the film, and she is easily the most complex character in this ensemble. Rani delivers a gamut of emotions in a tour de force performance that she never matched up to again. Preity Zinta and Abhishek Bachchan are given sketchily written characters, but their acting prowess propels them past the flaws in the writing. Amitabh Bachchan, in a supporting role, does an excellent job being both the moral compass of the movie and the comic relief. His scenes with Abhishek are some of the most beautifully written father-son scenes in Bollywood.

Karan Johar never tries to downplay the grandeur of love either. He doesn’t skimp on his budget or shoot in poor locations. So we get shots of a sprawling New York skyline and swanky apartments, courtesy of Sharmista Roy’s brilliant production design and Anil Mehta’s spellbinding cinematography. When Dev starts to fall for Maya, we get a beautiful Sufi-Rock number from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (Mitwa) that showcases the beauty of the city, juxtaposing the ugliness in both of their lives. Anil Mehta uses wides and big frames to showcase the magnitude of the city, which also acts as a brilliant counter to the emptiness that both Dev and Maya have in their lives.

It takes a lot of guts to talk about adultery in Bollywood. Excluding Silsila and Arth, very few Bollywood movies have had the ability to show adultery in its truest form, with all its consequences and filth. This is where KANK succeeds so well. Showing two people fall in love is fine, but Karan takes the time to show the trail of broken hearts that they leave behind, hurting people at every step. You may be tempted at times to think of Dev and Maya as villains, but Karan immediately justifies their actions and gives them purpose, which is a very hard thing to do sometimes. He also fleshes out peripheral relationships very well, such as Rishi and his father (which is such a sweet one) and Rhea’s with her mother-in-law, which only adds to the pain that you feel when everything goes to hell.

KANK isn’t without flaws. It is 192 minutes long, out of which a good 45 minutes of unnecessary comic subplots could have been chopped off (seriously, a kidnapper in New York subplot?), and sometimes, the melodrama is overdone to the point of exhaustion. The expository dialogue could have also been toned down, but with his huge star cast and a strong script, Karan Johar pulls off one of the most daring films of the modern 21st century;

This leads me to my most important point, no one ever talks about this movie whenever the careers of any of these actors are brought up. Whenever you talk about Shah Rukh Khan’s career, everyone talks about ChakDe India! and Swades, but never about this performance, which is, in my opinion, one of his best. No one talks about Rani’s complex, yet quietly destructive performance or Abhishek’s sensitive portrayal of a grieving husband that just yearns for the love of his wife. This fact has always annoyed me and still continues to this day because KANK is one of the best movies from Bollywood that I have ever watched. If you haven’t watched it yet, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is one watch that you will not regret, I promise you.

That’s all from me for this week.No Alvida from me, because as Maya’s immortal dialogue goes, “Alvida nahi. Alvida kehne se phir milne ki umeed mar jaate hai. Kya pata, phir mile?”