Ki & Ka
Director: R Balki
Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Swaroop Sampat
Two and a half stars
Ki & Ka could have been an important film, given its premise: a young couple decides to reverse gender roles in their marriage.
It was a movie everyone wanted to champion and hold up as a template for modern couples. Instead, it is a glib attempt to explore the issue.
The movie begins with a chance meeting between Kabir (Arjun Kapoor), who wants to be a housewife like his mother, and ambitious Kia (Kareena Kapoor Khan), who has no time for marriage or housekeeping.
Naturally, they fall in love and get married. He cooks, cleans and turns their – rather messy – house into a home. She climbs up the corporate ladder and pays the bills.
All of this happens within the first 20 minutes – the remainder of the film is filled with silly dialogue and contrived situations designed to repeatedly hammer home the point about gender equality.
This is at the cost of any nuance in the character’s relationships with each other and themselves. We see Kabir getting jealous when Kia ignores him while dining with an American colleague.
We find out that Kia has lied to her colleagues about what her husband does – yet the next minute she proudly reveals the truth.
It is frustrating for the audience because real life never works that way. Conditioning is a potent force and breaking it is never easy.
There was so much potential in the idea if the writer-director R Balki had allowed his characters to breathe and indulge in a little introspection.
On the plus side, the lead pair do a competent job. Kareena is spot on as the confident woman who owns her ambition and finds it difficult to share the limelight with her husband when the situation presents itself.
You only wish she hadn’t been stifled by such an underwhelming script. Arjun likewise looks comfortable in his role.
Ultimately, Ki & Ka is so enamoured by its concept that little thought is given to the execution.
The script, which was supposed to be the film’s hero, turns out to be its biggest let-down.
* Sonali Kokra
