Plagiarism!

I've always thought Karan Johar was an honest filmmaker. He's only done three movies but he's always been open about making these big budget emotional melodramas. He'd be the first to admit that the opulence that he shows on screen is not necessarily rooted in reality. He came out openly saying the college track in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was inspired by Archie comics. He's never been shy of saying he makes movies for NRI audiences.

Which is why it was quite a revelation that Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna is a plain copy of a 1984 movie called 'Falling in Love' with no less of a cast than Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro. I just saw that, and the whole story including so many scenes are identical. Ofcourse, neither of them are great movies but I distinctly remember Karan around the time of release, going all over town saying he began writing the story based on personal experiences and episodes in friend's lives. He even distinctly spoke about how all his friends seemed to be talking about infidelity around that time and he had to make a movie about that. Heck, he didnt even make the effort to change the location of the story from the original, New york. The least he could have done was acknowledged the original movie and given credit where it was due.

So the next time any movie maker waxes eloquent about how he was inspired to write a story, take it with a pinch of salt.