SILVER

[THE BIG-HEARTED WILL TAKE THE BRIDE]
This Bollywood rom-com catapulted Indian screen icon Shah Rukh Khan to superstardom playing a rich playboy raised by a single father who falls for a young woman (Bollywood star Kajol) from a conservative family while interrailing across Europe. Nearly three decades after its release, the film fondly known as "DDLJ" is one of India's longest running and most beloved classics. In fact, Mumbai's Maratha Mandir Theatre has screened — and continues to screen — DDLJ every day since 1995, save for a brief pandemic hiatus. The directorial debut of then-23-year-old Aditya Chopra (son of Bollywood mogul Yash Chopra) was originally intended to be an English-language cross-cultural romance with Tom Cruise in the lead role, but the tale of Simran (Kajol) and Raj (Khan) — two young London-born Indians from very different backgrounds — broke the mold in a different way, telling a love story about two Indian characters set predominantly outside of India and merging Bollywood romance tropes with a fresh new perspective and sense of modernity that redefined contemporary Indian cinema and its place on the world stage. Filled with now-iconic songs, dazzling dance numbers, stunning visuals and locations in Europe and India, DDLJ continues to delight new viewers and longtime fans alike with its heady mixture of forbidden love, laugh-out-loud comedy, high stakes melodrama, epic choreography and youthful optimism. DIR/SCR Aditya Chopra; PROD Yash Chopra. India, 1995, color, 189 min. plus a 15-minute intermission. In Hindi with English subtitles. NOT RATED

AFI Member passes accepted.

Presented in partnership with Olney Theatre Center
"A Nice Indian Boy" by Madhuri Shekar is currently onstage March 8–April 9 at Olney Theatre Center. For info and tickets, visit olneytheatre.org.