On a snowy mountain slope in Manali, Deepika Padukone says, “Us raat ki hawa mein jaise nasha tha…” Fact is, nasha toh Ranbir Kapoor ki aankhon mein hai. Acting ka nasha. The man it seems have overcome all his inhibitions. He seems to flow into the film’s narrative. He’s flawless. He is superlative in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. The film rides on RK’s performance. Otherwise this is a breezy love story. It follows the most predictable path of cinematic love. But even the clichés can’t stop the tour-de-force charm that the writing of Ayan Mukerji and the performances of the cast bring to the big screen. This is as big ticket as it gets.

Ranbir Kapoor as Kabir is a perfect mirror to most 21st century boys, who think ethos lies in travelling around the world in 80 days. YJHD is the story of a boy growing up to be a man. It’s not awfully different from Wake Up Sid, Mukerji’s previous offering but this time around both the director and the leading man are in their element. The result is a film that can please any cinema snob with relative ease. Pritam’s music is the operatic soul, Badtameez dil is the highest octave in his toccata.

There are wonderful themes in the story, the tiffs between friends, the emotional bond between a father and son or a young boy’s desperate attempts to run from his own emotions. And the elixir of these themes is some wonderful, conversational and quirky dialogue written by Mukerji. It’s a pity that the core of this film is a flaky love story. It borrows the train scene from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. It steals a shade from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The most-ravishing Deepika and charming Ranbir make it all believable. But it should have been something more.

YJHD is a well-packaged ‘okay’ film and it becomes a ‘good’ film thanks to the acting efforts of Kalki Koechlin, Aditya Roy Kapur, Deepika and of course, Ranbir. Kalki is wild and funny. It’s a new more vibrant side to her, since Kalki usually comes with darker characters. Aditya seems to be picking up where he left off in Aashiqui 2 and it works for him. His brother Kunaal makes a special appearance and he’s simply too good. Deepika’s performance is the perfect complement to Ranbir’s acting chops. She excels in the emotional scenes as well as the romantic ones.

YJHD entertains in its 2-and-half hours of runtime. It has great music, super acting, awesome visuals and fair dialogue. It’s got the right kind of frills. Madhuri Dixit makes an appearance in the song Ghagra in the first 10 minutes. Dilli wali girlfriend gets the great Indian wedding mood right. If all this don’t please you, nothing will. Go watch!