Gorgeous looking film with a heart

What if we get the chance to rectify all the big mistakes of our life? And what if a magical wand takes us into the future to personally witness all those critical twists and turns on the road journey of life where we may swerve into the wrong lane? Debutant director Nitya Mehra’s ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ is unlike any romantic yarn. It is the ultimate what-if saga, narrated with a tender care and subdued splendour that makes every moment between the lead pair precious and gladdening.

Watching the film, we are just happy to see Jai and Diya together. Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif look so made-for-each-other that it seems absurd to even suggest that they can be separated by destiny or design – or in this case by designed destiny. With believable nearsightedness – don’t we all mess up in life? – Jai tells Diya on the day of their wedding that he would rather not marry her and instead pursue his dreams of going to Cambridge.

The hurt, humiliation, bewilderment and disappointment that Katrina shows on screen in her sequence of painful rejection dashing hopes of shared lifetime, is a joy to behold. This is the first occasion in her career when Katrina has actually sunk her ego into her character. You can see her feeling the hurt and the happiness with equal sincerity. Bravo! Sidharth, so far seen giving performances where his matinee-idol looks obfuscate his other purported virtues, comes into his own with a character who is clueless about the stunning time travel that fate/destiny/karma/kundli puts him through.

It’s a morality fable bolstered by bouts of effervescence, nostalgia regret and pain. It takes us a while to fall into a rhythm and pattern, as Sidharth Malhotra’s character of the Maths teachers hurls from one age-span into another in pursuit of the unforgivable lapses that could ruin anyone’s life. The emotions the couple exchange seem relevant and real, as the dialogues (by Anvita Dutt) rip off pages from contemporary marriages all over the world without creating a cut-and-paste haste in the conversations.

There is plenty of the rare quality of gravitas tucked away in the mischievous love tale, none more mischievous than the pundit (played with able astuteness by Rajit Kapur) who is supposed to solemnise Jai and Diya’s wedding. Jai thinks the pundit is responsible for his rushed futuristic time travel. But is he? Is this ability to stare your mistakes in their eyes a quirk of fate? Or is it something else? But the real hero of the film is Ravi K Chandran’s camerawork. The magician that he is, Chandran imbues every frame with warmth charm and beauty. ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ is about getting a chance of changing the mistakes in life without making them.