Karan Johar – Hearts Still Care

There is a peculiar tendency—especially among more “Westernised” critics—to flatten Indian mainstream cinema into a moral checklist. If a film doesn’t align perfectly with contemporary ideological expectations, it is dismissed, and in that dismissal, nuance is often the first casualty. My recent conversation with a dear friend made this painfully clear. The subject: Karan Johar. Now, let me begin with honesty. I do not place Johar on a pedestal. In fact, I have my own reservations—particularly about his relative silence on queer issues despite his immense influence. But to reduce his work to “toxic portrayals of women” is not just reductive—it is intellectually lazy.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Yes, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is problematic. Johar himself has admitted this over the years—that the film’s transformation of Anjali from tomboy to “desirable woman” reflects the conditioning of that time. He has openly spoken about how his understanding of gender and femininity has evolved since. But here’s the problem: critics stop here. They freeze him in 1998, as though growth, reflection, and evolution are not part of an artist’s journey.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kajol’s Anjali is often dismissed as loud, caricatured, “too much”. But look closer. She is unapologetically rooted in her identity, emotionally intelligent, and unafraid to challenge patriarchal authority. She enters a hyper-elite household and refuses to shrink. That is not weakness—it is resistance, expressed within the grammar of mainstream Indian cinema. Johar understands something many critics ignore: in Indian storytelling, strength is not always quiet. Sometimes, it is exuberant, messy, and deeply emotional.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is often criticised for its “immature male protagonist”, and rightly so. But what is consistently missed is that the women are not written to accommodate him. Alizeh refuses romantic pressure and defines the relationship on her own terms, while Saba walks away from a younger man who cannot meet her emotionally. Johar does not reward the male gaze here—he exposes it. The film is not endorsing obsession; it is showing its futility. If anything, it offers one of the clearer portrayals in mainstream Hindi cinema of a woman saying, “I choose myself.”

Yet perhaps what unsettled audiences was not just the woman, but the man. Ranbir Kapoor’s Ayan is not written as the traditional Hindi film hero. He is emotionally excessive, vulnerable to the point of discomfort, and unable to accept rejection with dignity. In many ways, he occupies a space that mainstream cinema has historically reserved for women—the one who longs, who waits, who cannot let go. And Alizeh does something far more radical—she remains clear, self-contained, and unmoved by his persistence.

This inversion—of who desires and who decides—disturbs more than we admit. For decades, Indian audiences have been conditioned to believe that if a man loves deeply enough, he will eventually be rewarded. Here, he is not. He is simply left to live with rejection. And that discomfort is rarely interrogated honestly. Instead, it is redirected. The woman becomes “cold”. The film becomes “frustrating”. Because a man behaving with emotional vulnerability is often seen not as layered, but as weak—almost, as many would quietly put it, “like a woman”.

It is also telling how conversations around Ranbir Kapoor evolved after this phase, with a visible audience comfort towards more dominant, aggressive expressions of masculinity in films like Animal. To draw a direct line would be simplistic, but the contrast reveals something undeniable—what we reject in vulnerability, we often overcorrect in dominance.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani

In Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Rani is perhaps Johar’s most evolved female character. She is sexually autonomous, intellectually assertive, emotionally aware, and unapologetically modern. And yet, she exists within an Indian familial structure. This is where Western critique often fails. It looks for rebellion through rejection, while Indian narratives often explore rebellion through negotiation and transformation. Rani does not abandon tradition; she challenges it, bends it, and redefines her place within it. That is far more complex than simple defiance.

Across Johar’s filmography, a pattern emerges. His women choose, even when it hurts. They leave, even when they love. They define relationships rather than being defined by them. From unrequited love to extramarital dynamics, from age-gap relationships to emotional boundaries, his stories consistently centre female agency within commercial frameworks. And that last part matters, because Johar is not an indie filmmaker. He operates within a system where cinema must succeed financially to exist at all.

The word “toxic” has become dangerously overused. Everyone, to someone, is flawed—that is the nature of human storytelling. To call a character toxic because they are emotional, conflicted, or imperfect is to strip storytelling of its very essence. Johar’s women are not perfect. They are human. And in a landscape where women were historically ornamental, being human is revolutionary enough.

So why does this reading persist? Because for a long time, Indian audiences—men and women alike—have been conditioned to see women as emotional supporters, not emotional authorities. When a woman refuses, defines boundaries, or chooses herself, she disrupts expectation. And disruption is often misread as arrogance. A woman who does not accommodate is seen as difficult. A woman who does not reciprocate is seen as cold. And a woman who does not reward male persistence is seen as the problem. This is not just a failure of criticism; it is a reflection of conditioning.

Perhaps the issue isn’t that Johar writes weak women. Perhaps the discomfort lies in something deeper. His women do not always behave the way we want “ideal” women to behave. They love unwisely. They stay when they should leave. They leave when others expect them to stay. They are contradictory. They are real.

You don’t have to love Karan Johar. You don’t have to agree with his choices. But to dismiss his female characters as “toxic” is to overlook the quiet, consistent agency he has woven into mainstream Indian cinema—often in ways subtle enough to be missed, but strong enough to endure. And perhaps that says more about how we watch films than how he makes them.

I knew I’d like the movie. Because I am an Alia fan. Because I love family dramas. Because I enjoy Karan Johar’s direction and vision. I loved Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. And I wasn’t surprised that I ended up loving this movie, too.

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani has all the masala and the twists for a Bollywood movie. And it feels like a hit without a single macho punch being pulled anywhere on screen. It also hit close to home for very personal reasons. There are simply too many similarities right now between my life and various episodes in the film. I think that’s important for a good movie. And that’s why I loved it – because I connected with it.

The story is simple. An intelligent, self-made, independent, educated woman falls in love with a rich, loud, narcissistic, lovable, carefree man. Families realise the disparity and the lovers decide to test themselves in each other’s spaces for a few months.

Spoiler alert.

In the midst of it all, you throw in a septuagenarian romance that actually brings the couple together in the first place and then links them further. Then there is the antagonist: a matriarch who governs with an iron hand (already done in Ram Leela with far greater flair) but this doesn’t include physical but emotional and mental violence. There is a house governed by ambition and a quest for material prosperity. The other house is governed by emancipation and a quest for intellectual betterment and acceptance.

The movie doesn’t just tackle the romance and the odds of the hero and heroine. But interlinked within the families, each character struggles to find a voice or realises that the voice they were using could be biased at best and cruel at worst, as well.

The film has both Pride and Prejudice. It’s a subtle encapsulation of how people look down upon people, how we form prejudices based on past experiences and why it is important to realise our own trauma and make peace with due apologies. Every person in the movie is flawed. And growth happens with the realisation of these flaws and seeking to better one’s self through mature, self-affirming decisions.

The only abrupt change that seemed jarring was the write-off they gave Dhanlakshmi, Jaya’s character. But in a way, it was for the best, because it was in keeping with her character that the change wasn’t radical or real, but implied off-screen.

Dharmendra and Jaya Bachchan are brilliantly cast in characters just made for them. Shabana Azmi steals the screen when she is on it, as the woman who experienced true love for a few days that lasted a lifetime. She battled abuse and raises a son who is different from the typical idea of what a man should be and do, in India. This is brave (uncannily) and well-handled by Karan. The scene where Alia’s father is ridiculed speaks to every boy who grows up being different, in a patriarchal society. To exemplify this, Ranveer’s Rocky wears an outfit that’s vomit green as he laughs with the crowd. I noticed it, Karan.

The monologue Rocky gives addressing the ridicule Rani’s father faced, after a Kathak performance, is worth an honourable mention. It speaks of the need to understand not just what is considered woke in the modern day world but also the dangers of cancel culture that circles around it. For those who say that never happens to men who are into classical dance, you truly either live in a different world or choose to ignore the problems that are very much around in this world.

Rani’s character excels in her confrontation with Rocky’s father. It reminded me of the confrontation Reena Roy has with Lalita Pawar, in Sau Din Saas Ke. But there, there is the confrontation between two women. That happens with Jaya Bachchan and Alia, too. But what is actually different is Rani, a woman, standing in all her glory, dressed in Red at a Durga Puja and confronting a patriarch. The scene resonates because she stands there with no trace of fear. It is a juxtaposition to the scene where Rocky laughs at her father for being who he is. She stands with the frustration of all liberal mentality that reaches a crescendo at that point. It teeters on violence. The dangers of that happening is almost as bad as the despotic power that Dhanlakshmi holds over her entire family. Almost. But not quite.

The costumes were extensions of the characters. Rani was mostly dressed in the most beautiful sarees, since Sridevi’s performance in English Vinglish. Red being her colour and the implication of red being the colour of true love and passion, given it being the colour of the most sensitive character, of Rocky’s grandfather, essayed by Dharmendra. It is perhaps the colour that flares out when poetry is ousted by industry. Rocky thus wears a riot of colours, because he has it all in him and Ranveer can carry off all of them because he knows he can. He tends to wear black and white, when he is with his family. Do notice that.

I don’t know if I am the only one who felt so, but Alia looked a tad uncomfortable in the love scenes with Ranveer. If she is in love with the man, there can’t be a discomfort in the intimacy. In some shots, she just seems to be pulling away rather than pulling in. For the character of Rani to fall in love with the character of Rocky, there can be no chance of a lack of physical chemistry. And by the interval, the love has to have cemented enough to be there in their eyes. Ranveer has it, Alia loses out here. The character of Jaya Bachchan too for all her superiority complex just allows her husband and his lover to meet up? For a woman who walks out of a Durga Aarti, how does she sit by in discomfort when her husband obviously is being intimate with another woman? I found this a bit jarring.

There are a multitude of old song covers. Mostly from a favourite film of mine, Hum Dono. And the songs set to the OST of the movie are not particularly engaging but they work for the tempo of the movie. My favourite is actually not the title song but Ve Kamleya. (Must throw in an aside here: the movie begins with a dance number, which I quite liked, but it’s not the song that is worth a mention – I grinned when I saw all the nepo-babies make cameo appearances in the song. Tongue-in-cheek there, Mr Johar.)

All in all, I end with my personal opinion that Karan Johar has created a wonderful movie. He has applied himself once again to creating a family drama for the modern world and he has succeeded. Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani is exemplary for the fact that it speaks of breaking away from issues that do not truly matter and finds shaky ground in a world that is itself trying to find a place for each person’s uniqueness.