Though the heading of the review says it all, still I would like to share few interesting points about this latest young film made on the lines of some recent successes particularly targeting the (college going) youth & the multiplex audience.
Taking on the bright points first, it's the debut film of Divya Khosla Kumar (wife of Bhushan Kumar, the young mastermind behind T-Series), who had earlier acted in a big budget film AB TUMHARE HAWALE WATAN SATHIYO (2004) and then also directed few major music videos before taking on to film direction. So looking at the background, she could have easily gone for a safe film featuring a known sellable star without making any big effort. But the fact that she bravely decided to make a project with a completely fresh cast, spending all that time to train them before coming on to the screen, surely deserves some praises in these cunning commercial times, mostly concerned with the initials and the first weekend earnings. So all the youngsters featuring in it must have had a good time shooting with a lot of fun as it seems, but I only wish the team had also worked on its script too with the same devotion and spirit.
Now as backed up by one of top names in the entertainment industry, YAARIAN has a mega budget, a bigger canvas, an eye-catching competitive cinematography and a Hit musical score to do the trick. But unfortunately it relies too much on its catchy music and other technical aspects only and doesn't care about the most important part of a film i.e. its content or the script. As a result we have a pretty childish mix & match product taking its clear inspirations from earlier hits in this genre like JO JEETA WOHI SIKANDER made way back in 1992, the repeatedly adapted UGLY BETTY T.V. serial concept (2006) and STUDENT OF THE YEAR released just a few years back in 2012.
The film begins on a very routine note and then goes on to offer many seen before, mediocre and even bizarre sequences which should have been deleted right from its first draft only by the debutant director. For instance, here we have a foreign investor who wishes to buy a major part of the school and turn it into a Casino, as if it was being opened like an amusement park for the students. To decide whether the Casino can be made or not a competition is organized between the students in Australia & India, bringing in the 'Nationality Card' as a completely weird thought put in by the writers. Further the absurdity reaches its height when in order to win the competition the foreign investor calls in a complete professional sports person to compete with the Indian student contestant, and the Indian School team calmly accepts that like a group of morons having no objection of any sort.
However what disturbed me the most was that despite being a film made by a woman director, it has all the girls and ladies used in it like the objects of lust, a lonely mother is handed over the ashes of his only son just like that, there is a highly insulting scene disgracing our own concept of 'Bharat Mata' and then we also have a totally insane smooch between the lead pair which clearly looks like 'Eating' and not 'Kissing' from any angle.
The film desperately tries to impress you with its well shot cycling and rock climbing scenes coming towards the end, but by then the damage has already been done and the viewer is simply interested in getting away with it as soon as possible. On the acting front, all the young performers become the innocent victim of some extremely poor writing which actually doesn't let them leave any kind of impression on the end user. Plus the director wastes both Gulshan Grover and Deepti Naval in their small roles and they don't have much to contribute in the film as per their known caliber. Yes, Divya Khosla Kumar shows some good sparks in the competition sequences of the second half executed well, but in order to make a good film she has to understand the importance of a good script and content before taking on her next project.
In all, YAARIAN does have some good musical tracks to bring in the initial crowd but as a film its simply like a poor amateur version of Karan Johar's STUDENT OF THE YEAR, which in fact makes SOTY look like a World Classic in comparison.
