Team FC
Karan Johar began his directorial career with a funeral scene. The first scene of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) seems to be somewhere in rural Scotland, with Shah Rukh Khan standing in front of a pyre and hearing the line, “Rahul, mujhse dosti karoge? (Rahul, will you be my friend?).”
This scene in “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham” that ends up packing an emotional punch is a quiet one in which two long-estranged brothers reunite. Johar’s ability to mine that moment for melodrama speaks highly of the director-producer’s gift for utilizing melodrama as a force for good.
It’s a testimony to Johar’s sensitivity that he goes with no dialogues, trusting instead his actors to communicate the emotional turmoil with an entirely wordless scene in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.
Kapoor’s wonderfully hammy performance as the dean, who is a middle-aged, somewhat closeted gay man, Coochie-cooing and shamelessly hitting on his football coach (Ronit Roy) is the biggest comic relief in Student of the year.
Karan Johar and Ranbir Kapoor manage all the same to convey Ayan’s vulnerabilities at their rawest. It’s a devastating scene about a man utterly unprepared to deal with the heartbreak that will imprint itself upon him and which he will later turn into a song.
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