It seems like a standard drunken hook-up for Ayan Sanger (Ranbir Kapoor) and Alizeh Khan (Anushka Sharma) when they meet at a party somewhere in London, where both are presently residing. But when the canoodling on the couch doesn’t go exactly as planned, the two start talking instead, and realise they have a lot more in common than they could’ve thought. For one, both come from super-wealthy families and therefore have time and money to burn; both are crazy about classic Bollywood; and both are attached to none-too-significant (and soon-to-be dumped) others (played by Lisa Haydon and Imran Abbas). They also bond over their respective sob-stories: he wants to be a musician but is being pressured into taking over the family business; she’s been burned in a previous relationship and has lost faith in the very idea of romantic love. Soon, the two are practically inseparable, and headed off on holiday to France, where they spend majority of their time hitting up bars and recreating song-and-dance sequences from old Hindi films.

Fun though it is for a while, complications crop up: Alizeh’s feelings remain consistently platonic, whereas Ayan is beginning to want something more. They talk it out, but even as an understanding of sorts is reached that seems to placate our boy for the time being, an even bigger spanner is thrown in the works by the unexpected resurfacing of Alizeh’s former flame, Ali (Fawad Khan). What’s more, she actually decides to go back to him, leaving Ayan shocked and heartbroken. Fortunately, some comfort is at hand with the appearance of the enigmatic Saba (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), a “shayara” he runs into at an airport lounge and with whom there’s an instant and mutual attraction. But the affair ultimately proves mere distraction: Ayan is still as in love with Alizeh as ever, and we watch as he edges closer and closer to self-destruction, absolutely adamant that she love him back the same way.

Having kicked off his directorial career with a similar exploration of the blurring of the lines between love and friendship in 1998’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Karan Johar reprises the subject in his latest Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and there’s a clear maturity in his handling this time around—expected after all these years in the business. But while the director, who also wrote the film, does display a comparatively greater inclination towards realism than he did in the past (which was to say, not too much), and an acceptance that perhaps relationships are complex things that can’t be slotted under neatly-labeled categories—that’s very much the crux of the entire story, in fact—he’s also unable to fully commit to the new direction, afraid perhaps of alienating his audience, and the hesitation translates into a visibly uneven film. So while on one hand, there is far more lifelike nuance in Ayan and Alizeh’s interactions than, say, that of the erstwhile Rahul and Anjali, the treatment is not consistent, and more often than not, Johar finds himself drifting back into his comfort zone—namely, the land of fluffy, blatantly-manipulative melodrama set against glitzier-than-thou backdrops.

Those backdrops and the production design in general, though beautiful, have always given Johar’s films an air of superficiality that detracts from their overall persuasiveness. Those uber-modern and interchangeable apartments in London or Paris or New York that his protagonists are seen lounging about in with the statement pieces and the colour-coordinated book-shelves, those lavish wedding dos with the embellished lehengas and impeccably-tailored sherwanis, and the generally grit-free surrounds in which his dramas unfold, these feel more like images clipped out from lifestyle and fashion catalogues than spaces or clothing inhabited by real people, lacking as they do a distinct personality, or more specifically, a sense of context.

And that decorative quality isn’t just limited to the furniture and costumes in the director’s worlds, but very often extends to character traits as well. Ayan’s dreams of becoming a musician and Saba’s poetry are some examples—neither of these artistic pursuits feels at all organic to these people, seemingly inserted simply so Johar could justify the many songs that pepper the film or infuse conversations with some exotic Urdu turns of phrase. Even the Great Love of Bollywood that binds our lead couple is just not convincing, and appears to have been tacked on to launch the numerous cheeky references to films of old—including, unabashedly, most of Johar’s own past outings—a one-time mark of cool self-awareness in Hindi cinema that has pretty much run out of fuel through sheer overuse. But it doesn’t get more tiresome than Ae Dil’s final act, where a plot twist is introduced that is so shamelessly clichéd and where a serious subject is treated so superficially that it had me literally shaking my head.

That obsession with aesthetic rather than contextual values is one of the reasons why it can be so difficult to get on board with Johar’s characters: they tend to occupy generic types rather than flesh-and-blood persons, usually rich, privileged, uniformly good-looking individuals who don’t have to concern themselves with such matters as jobs or rent, except in a cosmetic sense, and who are therefore free to indulge in non-stop high-handed “dialoging” about love and relationships and art, essentially taking a hammer to subtlety. The fact that Alizeh and several others in the film were originally slated to be from Pakistan, but reportedly had their backstories later altered to appease hyper-nationalists in India who were threatening to block Ae Dil’s release (not to mention the public apology issued by Johar some weeks ago for casting a Pakistani actor in the film and his vowing not to do so in the future—a capitulation that is pretty disheartening in itself) can be seen as an instance of how thinly-sketched the characters truly are: the change makes absolutely zero difference.

The only thing that keeps the film chugging along, then, are the Performances, particularly that of leading man, and to a lesser extent, the leading lady. This stint might represent a bit of a retread for Kapoor, having played similar roles many times over before, but he’s still eminently watchable, investing as much in his cardboard character as humanly possible. And Sharma, although unable to fully divest herself of that annoyingly smug, pseudo-Manic Pixie Dream Girl persona she’s been wedded to in most of her films, occasionally rises to the challenge—more importantly, there’s a genuine warmth and sense of ease between them, which makes it easier to digest Ae Dil. The less said about the supporting actors, however, the better: Rai Bachchan is no more than a glorified mannequin here, Haydon’s turn as a dimwitted gold-digger is cringe-worthy, Abbas barely registers in his tiny role, and Khan, one of the few who possess the sort of acting chops that could’ve boosted a film like this, hasn’t been given more than a few lines. There is, not surprisingly, also a cameo appearance by Shah Rukh Khan that I could’ve done without—an overacted little sequence that appears to have been enough to merit a “We Love You Shah Rukh Khan” in the credits.

Like most of Johar’s films, dig through the layers and layers of over-the-top ornamentation and you’re bound to find a few little emotional nuggets that are truly affecting—and these certainly do exist in his newest venture, flashing out every now and then so you’re not entirely disengaged from the story. But given that most of the 157-minute running time is spent on the usual grand posturing and flowery exchanges, you best prepare to dig deep.