Does Shah Rukh ham in 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna'?

By N. K. Deoshi, ApunkaChoice

Since it was a Shah Rukh Khan film coming after a gap of more than a year, I was hoping to see an improvised, subtler actor in the superstar.

The superstar in SRK has always dominated the actor in him. The sugar-coated, mushy and over-dramatic roles he has played in many films have, sort of, narrowed the superstar’s acting range and given him a fixed screen image into which he seems to slip with utmost ease. No doubt, people love this image – that is why we have seen films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , Kal Ho Na Ho and Veer Zaara becoming hits.

As an actor, SRK admittedly showed flashes of brilliance in Swades and Paheli . He slipped out of his typical screen persona in both the films, but the box-office verdict of these two films has perhaps prevented such further departures for the superstar.

So we see him replay himself in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna . We see the same lofty brow, the same trembling of lips, the same heavy breathing, lump in the throat, the same twitching of facial muscles and the same overblown theatrics. Dev in KANK might have been called Raj or Rahul, the name doesn’t matter. The character enacted behind the name is fundamentally the same.

The eccentric hilarity of Dev in KANK apart, the emotional turbulences and dilemmas of the character have been brought out in no refreshing way by SRK.

SRK, the reigning superstar of Bollywood, throws no surprise in KANK. He does what he has been doing – play the over-acted tragedy king yet again.