TUM BIN II

T-Series Films and Benares Mediaworks’ Tum Bin II (UA) is a sequel to Tum Bin.

Taran (Neha Sharma) and Amar (Aashim Gulati) are in love with one another and are due to get married shortly. Taran lives with her two sisters, Manpreet (Meher Vij) and Gurpreet (Sonia Balani), in Edinburgh. Amar lives with his father (Kanwaljit Singh) in the same city. Manpreet has a Sikh boyfriend, Navjyot (Jaipreet Singh), who has decided to marry her. Gurpreet has a Pakistani boyfriend.

Taran and Amar go on a holiday to the snow-capped mountains as Amar is into skiing. Calamity strikes when Amar meets with a terrible accident and loses his balance while skiing all alone. It is not clear whom he had dashed against. After searching for many days, the search party concludes that Amar may be dead. Obviously, Amar’s father, Taran and her family are devastated.

Amar’s father tries hard to convince Taran to move on in life but even after six months, she is still too shocked to forget Amar. Amar’s father then introduces Shekhar (Aditya Seal) to Taran and her family as a late friend’s son. Shekhar is a fun-loving and lively person and soon brings back a smile on Taran’s face. By the by, Taran and Shekhar fall in love with one another.

Even as Shekhar and Taran’s romance is blossoming comes the good news that Amar is alive and has recovered under the care of doctors. He returns home. Taran is now in a dilemma – should she marry Amar or Shekhar? Shekhar realises that Amar is Taran’s first love and voluntarily retreats. On her part, Taran has so fallen in love with Shekhar that she confides in Amar, telling him of her love for Shekhar. The understanding Amar asks her to leave him and marry Shekhar. But soon, Shekhar realises that Taran is meant for Amar. Amar and Taran then learn something about Shekhar, which shocks them both.

What is it that they learn? Who is Shekhar? Whom does Taran finally marry – Amar or Shekhar?

Anubhav Sinha’s story is as old as the hills. It is basically a love triangle and has a lot of resemblance with Deewana. Although Sinha has tried to make the drama very youthful, his sermonising bits about life and philosophy bore the audience. Anubhav Sinha’s screenplay is clichéd, to say the least. There is not even a hint of novelty in the screenplay as one predictable scene after another unfolds in front of the audience. Probably because there is no freshness in the subject, Anubhav Sinha resorts to a song every few minutes to further the drama. But the songs hardly take the drama forward. The audience finds the songs intruding sometimes, simply because there are too many of them. Another drawback of the screenplay is that the audiences do not connect with any of the characters so much that they would root for either Amar or Shekhar. The frequent flip-flops of Taran, Amar and Shekhar get irritating after a point of time. All in all, the screenplay is too routine to be true and it fails to engage the viewers. Anubhav Sinha’s climax is equally ordinary. His dialogues are okay; sometimes, they even sound jaded.

Neha Sharma has done a fine job as Taran, the girl in love with Amar first and Shekhar later and finally torn between two lovers. Aditya Seal is alright as Shekhar. Aashim Gulati is okay in the role of Amar. Frankly, both, Aditya Seal and Aashim Gulati, don’t look like enviable heroes. Kanwaljit Singh acts ably. Meher Vij lends reasonably good support in the role of Manpreet. Sonia Balani is natural as Gurpreet. Jaipreet Singh (as Manpreet’s boyfriend, Navjyot), Ishwak Singh (as Gurpreet’s Pakistani boyfriend) and Davinder Madan (as the mother of Gurpreet’s boyfriend) lend adequate support. Romanos Kassimis (as François), Chris Donald (as Daniel) and the others pass muster.

Anubhav Sinha’s direction is alright. Of course, his narration is unable to camouflage the many shortcomings of the script. Ankit Tiwari’s music is the best part of the film. All the songs are melodious with three or four of them being very hummable too. But while some songs are youthful, others are of the kind which would appeal only to the older generation. Lyrics (Manoj Muntashir; ‘Teri fariyaad’ song written by Shakeel Azmi, and based on the original ghazal by Faaiz Anwar) are weighty. Shampa Gopikrishna’s choreography is average. Ankit Tiwari’s background music is okay. Ewan Mulligan’s cinematography is lovely. The foreign locations are eye-filling. Peter Pedrero’s stunts are nice. George Morris’ production designing is appropriate. Editing (by Farooq Hundekar) is not upto the mark.

On the whole, Tum Bin II will flop at the box-office in spite of hit music because it has nothing more to offer except very good songs.