There’s probably no good reason that this film should work, but somehow—despite its wealthy characters, exotic cruise-liner-set locations (primarily Istanbul), and sudsy, at times sentimental, melodrama—it does. Perhaps this is down to director Zoya Akhtar and her female co-screenwriter, and the believability of some of their characters: there’s the mother and father Neelam and Kamal (Shefali Shah and Anil Kapoor) holding their marriage together under the strain of his philandering, their daughter Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra) who runs a successful business but doesn’t love her husband, and their playboy son Kabir (Ranveer Singh) who won’t settle down like his parents want. Yet even if this could be a quality slice of televisual soap opera at times, the emphasis must still remain on the quality, beautifully filmed and acted with panache.
On the downside there’s the way things resolve themselves towards a sentimental denouement, often matched with syrupy musical cues—the title does after all translate as “Let the Heart Beat”—but after almost three hours it does at least feel somewhat earned. The device of having the film narrated by the family’s dog is a little precious, too, but it allows for a fair amount of physical comedy that never quite tips into the gross-out territory that Piku unexpectedly went to earlier this year—another film with a strong female protagonist. In that role Priyanka Chopra more than holds her own, believable as a self-made woman in control of her life, even with Ranveer Singh mugging and joking winningly for the camera as her dissolute brother and a powerhouse Anil Kapoor as her controlling dad. The constant changes in tonal range can get a bit trying towards the end (surely a feature of Bollywood cinema), as we veer from light-hearted comedy to dance numbers to histrionic melodrama, but the quality of the acting and writing finally wins through.
CREDITS
Director Zoya Akhtar ज़ोया अख़्तर; Writers Reema Kagti ৰীমা কাগতি, Zoya Akhtar and Farhan Akhtar फरहान अख्तर; Cinematographer Carlos Catalan; Starring Priyanka Chopra प्रियंका चोपड़ा, Ranveer Singh रणवीर सिंह, Anil Kapoor अनिल कपूर, Shefali Shah शेफ़ाली शाह, Farhan Akhtar फरहान अख्तर; Length 170 minutes. Seen at Cineworld Wood Green, London, Monday 8 June 2015. 
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