This movie, I feel, is directed specifically towards the traditional Indian male chauvinist. So being totally unbiased I will tell the positive and negative points of the film.
Positive: To start out, great and funny songs. Great acting by the whole cast. For the perspective of the traditional male Indian chauvinist, I felt they were able to portray it very well. They kept the essence of the perspective having a woman judge choose that Salman Khan, the protagonist, should have the right over the divorce and child, so his wife, Shilpa Shetty could not abort the baby or divorce until the baby was born and didn't depend on her. They justified scenes of spousal abuse due to situations in which the wife was at fault due to modern thinking which is not conventional in traditional Indian marriage. They brought up how wrong it would be for the son in law to stay with his sasu sasra (in laws), and how shameful it would be. Anytime a woman rose to power, especially the actress who played Shilpa Shetty's Mom, her ideas were dismissed. They were dismissed from her husband and Salman Khan. This is symbolic when he threw her framed photo in the trash. I feel that this movie was in a way like a revolutionary movie, in which they build the audience they gear their subject towards to really feel that everything Salman Khan did in this movie was justified. When showing a revolutionary Indian movie, a Britisher may not enjoy watching-likewise, a liberal woman with a more forward way of thinking probably will probably not enjoy this subject the most. But then again you must look at the movie as who it is being geared towards and then based on that have a sense of opinion. One has to go into a movie open minded.
Negative: Although this is meant to target a specific audience, I don't think this movie was fair in letting you hear enough of both perspectives for you to leave the movie and judge who was right and who is wrong in a given situation. This movie is extremely biased towards the traditional Indian male chauvinist perspective. I think they could have appealed to more people if they allowed you to relate to the women more. It's true you got to hear reasons how Shilpa was forward thinking, but you never knew why. They never offered to justify that she could have been right in the way she thought, because I feel like they think even thinking that way is wrong. Every time a modern thought was brought up, it was quickly dismissed, which is a major fault in the film. It is crucial to relate to a film, and this is only possible through character depth by having the audience hear everyone's side equally.
Last Words: If I could give this film a specific rating, I'd give it a 6.75. The acting was good by everyone, and the story line was a kind of Chalte Chalte meets Salaam Namaste. But being the victim, as a liberal woman, I feel that this movie, although rightfully able to target a traditional male, wasn't able to satisfy both perspectives equally. If it even did that, I would rate it higher. Also, it's just not a film that I felt could appeal to many people, so I rated it lower. You may disagree, we all have our biases, but like I said in my summary- I tried to be as unbiased as I possibly could. I hope whoever you are, if you watch this movie, you watch it with an open mind, keeping close attention to gender differences and class differences. If you are like me, and want a movie that better goes into character depth analysis and sees all perspectives and doesn't try to put characters at fault, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is the movie for you. Enjoy and I hope I did this film justice.