Walking out of the theatre someone said, "Lara and Bobby, special appearance. Amitabh Bachchan very special appearance. The story, very very special appearance." On retrospection, that pretty much summarizes the film.

Sitting at a London station awaiting a delayed train, Riki Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan) and Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) get talking. The two stangers, with a little initial hesitation, begin spilling their life story. The spin includes their fiancÃ©s Anaida (Lara Dutta) and Steve (Bobby Deol) respectively.

Somewhere down the line, telling each other their "How I Met" stories, they fall in love. They walk away from each other only yearning to be closer.

On reading the brief of the story, you know for certain there is a strong enough story. The hitch is the fact that it is rarely visited. Throughout the film there are so many trivial tangents that are explored, you begin feeling less entertained. What's more is that it so clearly divided into pre and post interval stages. While the pre interval stages you are busy recollecting whose decision it was to watch the film, the latter half makes all of it worthwhile.

While Shirish Kunder's Jaan-E-Mann flowed like a Broadway musical, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is not too far away since music is an integral part in pulling forward the plot. However it is the sudden end of this style to continue scenes that make the earlier seem pointless. There is only little that your eyes manage to absorb, the screen overflows with indulgence. The camerawork and editing are also extremely dissatisfying. While cuts are made at random, jumping space and time, the camera moves around everywhere. One scene that gets you dizzy is the one when Riki and Alvira visit the Taj Mahal, and the camera refuses to stop gyrating.

Furthermore the...

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