Purna Ahasan

Watched this movie on Prime recently and I’m conflicted. I didn’t really like the movie. However it made me cry like a baby (which usually indicates I liked the movie lol). Firstly this is not a lovey dovey romance film. It’s a heartbreak film. Satya’s character (Sonakshi Sinha) was so captivating and heartbreaking, even though she was seen for a very small amount of time. I actually wished she got more screen time and maybe a story attached to her character? I understand that she’s supposed to die, but her death was essential to the movie plot. There should have been more of her, like how she reacted to finding out her FIL had a mistress. Or maybe a scene where she finds out Roop (Alia Bhat) is in love with Zafar (Varun). Now let’s go to Dev’s character. I didn’t like him all that much at first but he became likeable as the movie progressed. Especially in the song number he was in, that was my favorite scene. I loved Kiara in this movie, dare I say a lot more than Alia. The two minutes of screen time she had with Varun showed a lot more chemistry than Alia had with Varun the entire movie. That’s my main complaint about the movie really. It’s that Alia and Varun had 0 chemistry for being the two leading actors. Virtually nothing happened in the movie for them to have fallen madly in love with eachother. He flirted with her and she rejected then she loved him after he fought a bull haha. Which by the way the bull scene was the crappiest movie scene, completely unnecessary. Also Roop’s character flipped around too much. In the beginning she was adamant on getting married to Dev to protect her honor in society, then had no problem falling in love while married. Her character would have made for a much more interesting plot had she listened to Satya in the beginning and just lived with Dev and marry later. I liked Madhuri in the film, though I felt that her character would have suited better as a villain. The set design of the movie was stunning. I decided to watch Kalank solely because I fell in love with the set design in First Class song. The mansion design was stunning, as was the recreation of Husnabad. At the same time, the movie felt too much like a set. The costumes were stunning as well. The script was also beautifully written, which is why it made me cry. Every line sounded like a poem. The words were powerful but it just didn’t match with the plot. All in all, I do think the movie is worth watching though I won’t say that it’s good. The reviews are mixed. Poor character development and lack of a believable story line (Roop and Zafar were not in love) made it a little hard to watch. For a movie that is over 2 and a half hours long, it felt both incomplete and too long.