> Vivaah

Director: Sooraj Barjatya

Lead Star Cast:
Shahid Kapoor...... Prem (Bholu)
Amrita Rao...... Poonam
Anupam Kher...... Harishchandra
Alok Nath...... Krishna Kant (Chacha)
Seema Biswas...... Rama (Chachi)
Sameer Soni...... Sunil

The film directed by Sooraj Barjatya, like his other films, portrays a beautiful story which is a fairy tale indeed. The main roles are portrayed by Shahid Kapoor as Prem, Amrita Rao as Poonam(bittu), Alok Nath as Poonam’s father, Anupam Kher as Prem’s father. All the roles are perfect and acting of all people suited the story and the characters. Amrita is absolutely beautiful and sweet and cute and what not!! (The perfect girl in everyone’s eyes as the story demands) and Shahid does his job pretty well, as the good-hearted boy of this generation(Again as the story demands). The on-screen chemistry of both is really wonderfull.

The story theme as like other films of the director, is of a middle aged girl family and a high caste boy family. Here the only difference is the boy and girl does not fall into love on their own, instead its an arranged marriage from the start, decided by both families in the form of a proposal through a common friend. Poonam stays with her father’s brother(Alok Nath) and their family. The Chacha and Chachi have their own daughter(the one who comes as model in ads! dono name..) Chachi is not so kind towards Poonam coz, she is more fairer and beautiful than her own daughter, Chotti. For the extremes, Prem’s family runs a very prestigious business spread over world. but family is very kind hearted and does not mind the proposal from the small village. The engagement happens on the day when the groom ppl come to the girls’ house and marriage is fixed after 6 months.

In between, both families have a picnic at Somsarovar for few days, after which Prem flys over to Japan(or some country..) for project work. All the while, Prem and Poonam develops a mutual understanding over time. After coming back, marriage preparations are in high swing, when the story twist occurs!

The film is beautifully framed into a good family drama theme, with good meaningful dialogoues which is true to some extent. In the start, Prem’s father talks long about marraige and stuff to his son which is good and true to all those who are swinging thoughts regarding marriage. Then the feelings and tensions between the engaged people and the non-stop talks that they do makes an interesting watch. The small roles played by Prem’s elder brother, bhabhi(wife) and their son’s jokes, the cheerful Chotti etc gives comedy touch to the otherwise serious film. And the film is a full fledged family movie genre.

Overall rating: 7/10