Life Partner

Life Partner
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rumi Jaffery
Produced by	Abbas-Mustan Hussain Burmawala
Screenplay by	Yunus Sejawal
Story by	Rumi Jaffery
Starring	Govinda Fardeen Khan Tusshar Kapoor Genelia D'Souza Prachi Desai
Music by	Songs: Pritam Chakraborty Sachin - Jigar Background Score: Sanjoy Chowdhury
Cinematography	Sameer Arya
Edited by	Hussain Burmawala Sanjay Sankla
Distributed by	Burmawala Partners Viacom 18 Motion Pictures
Release dates	14 August 2009 (2009-08-14)
Running time	138 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹140 million (US$2.1 million)
Box office	₹270 million (US$4.0 million)

Life Partner is a 2009 Bollywood romantic comedy film. It stars Govinda, Fardeen Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Genelia D'Souza and Prachi Desai in lead roles. The film is written and directed by Rumi Jaffery and produced by Abbas-Mustan under their banner, Burmawalla Bros. It received positive reviews upon its release on 14 August 2009, though it was an above average grosser at the Indian Box Office

Plot

Karan (Fardeen Khan) and Bhavesh (Tusshar Kapoor) are close friends living in Cape Town, South Africa. Karan has a good life, with a well-paying job. He is in a comfortable relationship with his beautiful yet childish and pampered girlfriend Sanjana (Genelia D'Souza), who changes her profession every six months, e.g. novel writing to singing to painting, almost always very disastrously (this is something Karan always puts up with, as much as he hates it). Her father (Anupam Kher), who dislikes Karan, always tries to keep her happy and supports her in whatever she does. Bhavesh wishes for an arranged marriage and keeps a diary of all the beautiful things he will do to his wife after marriage. His father Darshan Manibhai Patel (Darshan Jariwala) is a strict autocrat, patriarch and a tough follower of the Hindustani, especially Gujarati, principles in a foreign land. Jeet (Govinda) does not believe in marriage or love and is a confirmed womaniser. He flirts with every woman he meets and encourages married women into divorcing their spouses so that his living as a divorce lawyer is uncompromised.

Bhavesh's father treats him as young and incapable of marriage, but on his wife's (Shoma Anand) insistence, he travels with his family, along with Karan and Sanjana to Gujarat to find Bhavesh a bride. In Gujarat, they stay at the palatial home of a friend of Bhavesh's father, Vijay Singh Jadeja (Vikram Gokhale). Bhavesh meets some girls, all of whom are unsuitable, and then ends up falling for Prachi (Prachi Desai), Vijay Singh's daughter, when she views Bhavesh's ideals such as not drinking, virginity - as good. He confesses his love for her and they get married. During the wedding rituals, Sanjana says "Yes" to Karan's long-asked question (will she marry him?) and they get married the same night.

The movie then switches to the present, where both couples are at court. The judge declares the divorce between Karan and Sanjana and between Bhavesh and Prachi valid. Outside the court, while they wait for the final papers to arrive, the story again goes back to 6 months earlier, showing what led to the divorces after the weddings, when they came back to Cape Town from India.

After marriage, Karan and Sanjana's family life deteriorates badly, with Karan wanting domestic stability and Sanjana being a horrible home maker, something that is confirmed when she ends up burning down his apartment while "trying" to switch off a washing machine. Karan returns home and is shocked to find his apartment burnt down. He finally loses patience with Sanjana and yells at her, venting his frustration at her stupidity and lack of awareness and also his dislike for her father. Shocked and heartbroken, Sanjana leaves and sends a notice of divorce to him the very next morning through her father's secretary. Karan shouts at him too, and vehemently declares that he will divorce Sanjana, having had enough of her childishness. Jeet, who is present there at the time, supports Karan in his decision.

Bhavesh is happy with Prachi but Prachi is stifled at the old fashioned ideals and many rules of Bhavesh's father, who dislikes and sneers at her for doing so. She, without her father-in-law's knowledge, applies for a job - the very idea of which angers him. Bhavesh, taking sides with his father, slaps her at the same time Prachi's father arrives. While the latter tries to defuse the tension, Bhavesh, bound by his father's old fashioned ideas, is unable to stand by his wife. This unpleasant situation concludes with Prachi divorcing Bhavesh on the spot.

Jeet later changes his lifestyle when he meets Anjali (Amrita Rao in a special appearance), who turns out to be different from all the other girls he has ever met since she does not give up on him at any cost and expresses a genuine desire to marry him. He decides to get married to her, much to Karan and Bhavesh's chagrin. They shout themselves hoarse at him when he tries to justify his getting married, stating that since he had facilitated their divorces, he has no right to get married. However, Jeet, while accepting no responsibility for their decisions, also states that his hatred for love and marriage had manifested in their marriages and caused them to separate from their wives. Karan and Bhavesh finally accept his explanation when he admits that he was wrong in taking a negative view of love and marriage and also says that wives or "life partners" always stood by their husbands in times of joy and sorrow, thus it is never worth it to break up such a relationship for any reason whatsoever.

At Jeet's wedding, Sanjana enters the party, wearing a "bomb", shouting that Jeet was happily getting married when he had caused her divorce. With five minutes left for the bomb to explode, Karan and Sanjana have an argument as to why their divorce took place and whose fault it was in the argument that had culminated after the fire. Sanjana's father intervenes by saying that he had been against the relationship from the start and he had sent the divorce papers not only from Sanjana to Karan but also from the latter to the former, without their knowledge. With only seconds left, Bhavesh's father also apologises to his friend, Prachi and all the family members present for imposing his traditional and old fashioned values on them, admitting that this had been the root cause of Bhavesh and Prachi's divorce. However, the "bomb" turns out to be fake. When this is revealed to be a plan concocted by Jeet and Sanjana to bring everyone forward and admit their mistakes, Bhavesh reconciles with Prachi and Karan not only reconciles with Sanjana but also with her father who finally accepts him as his son-in-law.

At the end, Bhavesh's father lets go of his strict ideals and is shown interacting very happily and in a modern manner with his family, who are now happier and still more modern. Jeet becomes a marriage counsellor, now uniting the very people he separated, and Karan unsuccessfully tries to teach Sanjana how to cook.

Cast

• Govinda as Jeet Oberoi
• Fardeen Khan as Karan Malhotra
• Tusshar Kapoor as Bhavesh Patel
• Genelia D'Souza as Sanjana Jugran/ Sanjana Karan Malhotra
• Prachi Desai as Prachi Jadeja/ Prachi Bhavesh Patel
• Anupam Kher as Sanjana's father
• Darshan Jariwala as Darshan Manibhai Patel (Bhavesh's father)
• Shoma Anand as Bhavesh's mother
• Vikram Gokhale as Vijay Singh Jadeja (Prachi's father)
• Amrita Rao as Anjali Kumar/ Anjali Jeet Obroi (Cameo)

Reception

Life Partner netted ₹17.5 million (US$260,000) overseas in its opening week^[1] while it netted ₹180 million (US$2.7 million) domestically by the third week.^[2] It was elevated to average verdict by Box office India.

In the United States the film grossed $110,240 while it obtained $347,100 from New Zealand, Fiji, the United Kingdom & Malta.^[3]

Soundtrack

The music for this film is composed by Pritam and Sachin - Jigar, with Lyrics written by Javed Akhtar. The Film has 7 songs featuring two remixes.

The song "Gunji Aangna Mein Shehnai" is composed by Sachin - Jigar.^[4]

References

External links

• Official website
• Life Partner at the Internet Movie Database
• Life Partner at Box Office Mojo