There´s a lot riding on your shoulders when you are the offspring of the director of Indian cinema´s biggest ever box office sucesses. Sholay catapulted Ramesh Sippy to legendary status in Bollywood´s chronicles. But any expectations that his son´s debut flick would do the same for the ´beta´, are quashed with the final outcome that is Kuch Naa Kaho. The novelty and inventiveness that was Sholay is just not there in Rohan´s product, though you can witness a talented flair throughout the proceedings.

Raj (Abhishek Bachchan) is our all too familiar NRI (non-resident Indian) hero, the guy who does not want to get married because the right girl has yet to appear. He´s witty, jovial and carefree, yet stupid enough to get suckered in to attending his cousin´s wedding in India, There, his Mama (Satish Shah) is waiting to introduce him to a long line of prospective brides-to-be. Fate, however, has it that Raj will fall for Mama and Company´s employee, cum fashion designer, Namrata (Aishwarya Rai). And she is in no tearing hurry to fall in love with Raj. You see, the last guy in her life, her husband, left her eons ago just as she was giving birth to her now seven year old tot, Aditya (Parth Dave). Expectedly though, Raj, Namrata and Aditya make a perfect family, and just as things are about to resolve themselves "happily ever after", something happens. If you cannot guess what, you obviously have not seen enough Indian movies in your lifetime.

On a ten scale of filmi predictability, Kuch Naa Kaho actually ranks a twelve. It is so often obvious what is going to happen next that you could probably give yourself credit for writing the story. And the problem is that when Rohan Sippy is copying Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (the adult and child mingling at school), Daraar and countless recent romance and wedding movies, the film is drab.

What makes Kuch Naa Kaho fresh and endearing are its light and different touches infused by the director and the crew. The innocence of a child´s longing for a fatherly figure, for one, is realistically shown. So is the confusion and angst of a woman who has once before been hurt by a male in her life. As an antidote to the philandering husband movies of David Dhawan, Kuch Naa Kaho succeeds fully with its mature and righteous perspective.

Further credit can be given to all of the lead trio. True, the romantic pair appear to be drowning in confusion during the first half hour, but afterwards, they suddenly learn to tread water. Aishwarya, in particular, proves she does not need a Sanjay Leela Bhansali to extract a good performance from her. I loved her interactions with screen son and her confused emotions were perfect upon her realization that Raj had fallen in love with her.

Similarly, while I will never forgive Abhishek for poorly immitating his zillion times more talented dad every so often, he succeeds in all the scenes that require subtle and quiet acting. Parth Dave is cute and precocious, and his acting is helped by a lot of chirpy dialogue courtesy Naushil Mehta and Nidhi Tuli.

The vast majority of the limited songs also show up at the right moments, a rarity in this day and age of shoving twenty songs into a five hour romance about "loving your lovings". (The quotation is courtesy Ramgopal Varma´s brilliant "Company".) Choreography, cinematography and set designs, it is all fun to watch, though "Kehti Hai Yeh Hawa" will stand as my personal favourite. This video appears to have also used much of the extra footage the self-indulgent director could not fit into the talkie portions. Now that´s good use of the cutting room floor scrap.

Portions of Rohan Sippy´s Kuch Naa Kaho reveal that the man has got quite some talent and potential. But other sections also show the excessive influence the peers of this newcomer director have on his work. If Rohan can rid himself of the urge to copy others´ success formulae, I´m confident he can make his own Sholay some day.