There
is
a
kind
of
subverted
joy
in
watching
Kareena
Kapoor
and
Shahid
Kapoor
play
a
Valentinian
romance
with
full-throttle
gusto.
Milenge
Milenge
took
its
time
to
come
to
the
theatres.
Yes,
it's
old
fashioned
in
theme.
But
not
dated.
The
material
which
must
have
been
quite
bulky
by
the
time
Kaushik
was
done
with
shooting
has
been
cut
and
pasted
with
restrained
enthusiasm.
What
we
have
is
a
paper-thin,
sometimes
cute,
at
times
annoying
rom
com
where
destiny
plays
a
pivotal
part.
Kiss-mat,
anyone?
Yup,
intimacy
is
fugitive
between
Shahid
and
Kareena.
But
they
nonetheless
look
like
a
real
pair.
The
plot
plods
at
a
pace
that
suggests
love
is
just
about
the
only
force
that
keeps
the
universe
moving.
Both
the
protagonists
play
professionals.
But
we
hardly
see
them
work
except
on
their
ever-palpitating
hearts.
The
plot
invents
various
devices
from
missed
flights
to
truant
elevators
to
hero
in
drag
and
heroine
in
glycerine
to
keep
the
love
birds
apart
for
two
hours.
There
are
some
heart-warming
moments
depicting
random
hearts
pumping
into
a
collective
despair
as
time
ticks
by.
There's
no
attempt
to
pull
punches,
no
over-clever
dialogues
and
no
effort
to
paint
and
gloss
the
feeling
of
love
with
sassy
'cool'
lines.
Director
Satish
Kaushik
plays
the
romance
on
the
straight
and
narrow
path.
And
that's
just
about
the
most
comforting
aspect
of
this
basic
simple
and
predictable
boy-meets-girl
tale.
The
principal
performances
range
from
precocious
to
authentic.
Surprisingly
Shahid
tends
to
go
overboard
in
the
early
comic
sequences.
But
he
makes
up
for
the
excesses
in
the
second-half
with
expressions
of
a
lover's
anguish
over
Cupid's
awry
arrow.
Kareena
looks
gorgeous
and
slim
in
some
scenes,
gorgeous
and
relatively
plump
in
other
scenes.
In
totality
the
chemistry
is
quite
palpable,
much
more
so
than
in
some
of
the
other
much-hyped
love
stories
that
arrived
lately
with
a
bang
and
fizzled
out
without
the
pang
of
love
being
palpable
in
a
single
frame.
In
Milenge
Milenge
you
do
FEEL
for
the
lovers.
Maybe
it
has
to
do
with
the
fact
that
we
know
what
the
film's
lovers
do
not.
That
the
actors
playing
them
were
involved
not
too
long
ago.
But
hush!
Story first published: Monday, July 12, 2010, 13:21 [IST]