Deepika Padukone's career so far as been an interesting one, bursting onto the scene with Om Shanti Om and Chadni Chowk to China, both films where she would play two characters each.
The first half focused on the romance for the most parts after Karthik's professional life gets sorted, and here the usual musical montages form the backdrop of the courtship between Karthik and the outgoing Shonali. It's a confidence booster that Karthik's own psychiatrist (Shefali Shetty) seem unable to dispense, and with the prep talk every dawn at 5am, Karthik becomes the confident man as he struts around the office, succeeding in every aspect thanks to those calls, and eventually wooing the girl of his dreams. The second develops when Karthik receives anonymous calls on his landline, from a chap to claim to be Karthik himself, dispensing advice on taking personal ownership and standing up for oneself. Here he cuts his Karthik in two different styles, the first of course which is the shy and gentle meticulous genius with a penchant for solving Rubik cube puzzle. Run, girl! The only other film I watched Farhan star in, is the ensemble piece Luck By Chance, which gave a contemporary look at the Bollywood film industry. He is infatuated with his beautiful colleague Shonali Murkhejee (Deepika Padukone) to the point of being a crazed stalker, accumulating thousands of emails he just had not the guts to send out, and it is this point about being obsessed that is truly scary in the film, especially when these emails were used to aid in the wooing process. Carrying that kind of guilt while growing up does severe deficiencies as a child, and he becomes very much reserved, often failing to let his talent shine, and being trampled over in his office. Famous for being a prolific producer and director himself, he has no lack of acting chops and takes on the role as the mysterious Karthik Narayan, a meek man who is agonized by his childhood secret of having been involved in his brother's death. Farhan Akktar impresses and carries the film on his shoulders from start to end. Thankfully though it steered clear of that formula, although it did become quite the stretch in its home run revelation, to achieve what's relatively short for an Indian film that clocks in just slightly over two hours. The telephone has left its indelible mark as a horror film element, thanks to many Japanese films and Hollywood remakes which dwell on mankind's fear of pervasive technology, and it is easy to mistake this Bollywood film, written and directed by débutant Vijay Lalwani as one of the run of the mill horror films which the protagonist get antagonized by strange phone calls made to him in the middle of the night.