Chori Chori (2003)
Cast: Ajay Devgun Rani Mukherjee Sonali Bendre
Director: Milan Luthria
Music Director: Sajid Wahid
Synopsis: Shmaltzy, sugary romance overdoses on its own sweetness
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Milan Luthria showed considerable promise with Kachche Dhaage but comes badly unstuck with this sickly sweet variation on Goldie Hawn's Housesitter.

Khushi (Rani Mukerji) is an effervescent, bubbly orphan overflowing with the milk of human kindness. She is exactly the sort of heroine who, in lesser films, would be stricken with some incurable disease, spend two hours transforming the lives of everyone around her and then depart this world leaving behind a sea of tears and sodden handkerchiefs.

Fortunately, Khushi suffers from no such affliction.

Although, come to think of it, it might actually have given the film rather more purpose than Chori Chori ultimately manages.

Her constant companion is Jonathan—a stuffed monkey.

Puhleeze.

Ranbir (Ajay Devgn) is an architect who appears to have achieved remarkably little in life. His ambitious girlfriend Pooja (Sonali Bendre) has little intention of marrying someone she considers a failure, despite his grand romantic gesture of presenting her with the beautiful house he has built for her on a mountaintop in Shimla.

Ranbir and Khushi's paths cross at a party and, after losing her job, Khushi finds herself sneaking into Ranbir's unfinished house in Shimla. By one miraculous coincidence after another, she somehow convinces Ranbir's family that she is engaged to him and happily settles into the half-built home.

One day Ranbir unexpectedly arrives to discover Khushi taking a shower to the strains of Lata Mangeshkar's glorious "Apni Prem Kahaniyan" from Mera Gaon Mera Desh—one of the film's genuine highlights.

After the inevitable tu-tu main-main, Ranbir realises Khushi could help him win back Pooja by making her jealous. Miraculously, Pooja and Khushi have already met and, instead of fleeing for fear of being exposed as a fraud, Khushi cheerfully invites Pooja to lunch so that she can wax lyrical about the wonderful man she is supposedly engaged to.

The deception is now complete.

Ranbir and Khushi pretend to be engaged in order to provoke Pooja's jealousy while Khushi gradually finds herself becoming part of Ranbir's warm and affectionate family.

From this point onwards, the film follows an entirely predictable path.

Khushi helps rekindle the romance between Ranbir and Pooja but inevitably falls in love with Ranbir herself. He, in turn, finds himself increasingly drawn towards Khushi yet remains incapable of expressing his feelings.

Chori Chori contains the germ of a perfectly decent story and, in more capable hands, it might well have become an engaging romantic comedy.

Unfortunately, the screenplay stretches credibility far beyond reasonable limits and Khushi's Little Orphan Annie routine—wandering around dispensing goodwill wherever she goes—is simply too sickly to be genuinely touching or romantic.

In truth...

...it becomes rather tedious.

The supporting characters are little more than stock figures borrowed from a thousand previous Hindi films and, as though matters were not already padded enough, Milan Luthria even inserts an Adnan Sami song picturised on Tiku Talsania. In many ways, it betrays a worrying uncertainty about where the film itself ought to be heading.

Ultimately, Chori Chori is an entirely innocuous, thoroughly ordinary film. It moves along at a reasonable pace but leaves remarkably little impression, undone by Luthria's uneven direction and a screenplay that repeatedly tests the audience's patience.

This is very much Rani Mukerji's film and, to a considerable extent, she succeeds in brightening proceedings through sheer force of personality. It is a pleasant performance, if a rather formulaic one. Ajay Devgn is equally dependable while Sonali Bendre acquits herself well as the selfish, materialistic girlfriend.

The music, however, is distinctly disappointing, with not a single truly memorable song.

The film may have spent years sitting on the shelf but, surprisingly, it never actually feels dated.

Unfortunately...

...it remains a sad waste of what might have been.