Masand's verdict: Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

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Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Amitabh Bachchan.

Direction: Karan Johar

What do you do if you find your soulmate after marriage? That's the key question at the heart of director Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna which opens at cinemas this week. For Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee, both trapped in marriages that are falling apart, the options aren't too many.

After all, love is all about staying faithful to your partner till death do us apart, isn't it? Well maybe not, Johar suggests in this glossed-up, all song-and-dance tear-jerker set in the heart of Manhattan, New York.

Shah Rukh's a failed football player whose marriage to Preity Zinta has lost its fizz. In fact, he's a bitter and temperamental man who not only makes an insecure husband to his successful wife, but also a tyrannical father to their little son.

In another part of the same city, Rani Mukherjee marries her childhood friend Abhishek Bachchan but feels little passion towards him although he's nuts about her. Shah Rukh and Rani find love in each other's arms and embark upon an affair that is sure to leave too many people shattered.

Right off the bat, you're relieved that this one's not a syrupy saga about perfect relationships. In fact it unabashedly holds a mirror to everything that's wrong in modern marriages. There are no easy answers, and thankfully, Johar doesn't shy away from making that clear.

Unlike the protagonists of his last film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham who were all good-as-gold and pristine clean and merely conflicted over a misunderstanding, the characters in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna are damaged goods. They're confused, they're complexed, and they're hurting as hell. As a result they do all the wrong things and they say all the wrong things. And really, that's what makes them both relatable and endearing on screen.