Student of the Year- A long Review

I'll admit right away- I adore meaningless, logic less, Candy floss movies, i especially love movies with amazing visuals and loads of romance & drama. So it was no big surprise when i made a mental note to myself- You are going to watch Student of the Year.

When the trailers released it looked like how each and every KJo movie looks like- Picture perfect. I finally managed to sneak my way into the theater yesterday, and its with great happiness that i report that i wasn't in the least bit disappointed.

Now for the story- Rohan Nanda is the resident rich brat at St.Teresa's, needless to say he's The Guy every male student on campus aspires to be and every girl hopes to snag, but well, like most rich-talented-good looking guys, he's taken. Taken by? Meet Shanaya Singhania, the school's fashionista, with looks to boot & oodles of money, she's undoubtedly the most popular girl . She's Rohan's girlfriend, an extremely taken for granted girlfriend of four years.  The beginning few minutes of the movie make it plenty clear to the viewer where the relationship is heading (is that a spoiler?). Enter new student- Abhimanyu (Abhi) Singh. He's (another well done up) a handsome-hardworking-intelligent-sanskaari middle class boy. Do i need to go further? Predictable is what one would call it but you can't care less because the dialogues keeps you engaged. Oh my god, The dialogues! they are clearly the backbone of the movie along with stupendous acting on the part of all three leads- Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra along with Rishi Kapoor as Dean Vasisth & Ram Kapoor as Ashok Nanda.

 Okay back to the story- Rohan and Abhi get off to a rough start, the former being part of the Tata group and the latter being part of the Bata group. The rough start however falls into an easy friendship, an easy friendship between two equals. Abhi is driven and focussed (he's a sports scholarship student) he wants to grow up to be another Ashok Nanda or in other words a filthy rich & a damned successful Business tycoon. Rohan on the other hand dreams of being a rock star, a dream that is a big thorn in his relationship with his father & brother. Shanaya? well she's a love starved young girl, stupid but sweet, very sweet & well meaning. The first half of the film is an exhibit of the two boys' bromance. Its fantastic, i have to admit, its typical rich boy fun & banter but nice to watch nevertheless. Shanaya is a dedicated girlfriend but she begins to question her unswerving loyalty to Rohan who has never really appreciated or understood the whole worth of it all. His playboy antics and flirting with her rival, the head cheerleader Tanya (former child star Sana Saeed) has her constantly on the edge and not to mention- insecure. And so the long suffering girlfriend in an effort to get Rohan's attention begins a little lets-make-him-jealous-game with Abhi, with his consent of course. The game as expected has consequences that puts both Shanaya  and Abhi in an awkward situation. Soon enough, the Student of the Year competition rears its head. This trophy, the brain child of the charming & very interesting Dean Vasisth, the school's marvellously Gay principal manages to tear apart newly forged friendships and doesn't spare the old ones as well. The competition is actually pretty stupid and superficial. The end is very very well written and acted out. Its not one expected, but the angst of a lonely student and the havoc it wrecked in all the other students' life is rightly highlighted and not swept under the carpet like how you'd expect in a candy floss movie. I wish i could tell more, but I have in my opinion been quite liberal in my information as compared to other reviews.

Before i finish off however there were few areas i didn't quite agree with. Shanaya the lead female, as i have already mentioned, is stupid, she doesn't seem to have any particular ambition in life. She's pretty and dolled up and spends most of her free time fussing & getting confused between the two boys. She is treated like a commodity most of the time, a trophy to be won. Her best friend Shruthi is a tom boy, another stereotype. The movie itself thrives on stereotypes and cliche'd situations but again that's what makes the movie enjoyable. The makers have largely pandered to the average movie goers taste by not over complicating it but at the same time they manage to give attention to the more subtle details that make the movie real-  Rohan & his father's relationship, how he breaks free of the shackles of being Ashok Nanda's son and Shanaya & Abhi's under- the radar romance. As for the chemistry, Rohan & Shanaya had more of the sizzle quotient, Abhi  Shanaya not so much, maybe because their love is never in your face the way it is with Rohan & her.

All in all, the movie is pretty fabulous. Yes, my review has been full of superlative adjectives but that is mostly because even the movie has been made on a scale where only such words can justify the work that has gone into making it that way. The one memory that i walk away with is those enjoyable moments between the two male leads and as i leave the movie hall 'asi vele' plays in my head & I'm yet to kick it out.