Aaina scripted by Honey Irani while dealing with the cliched triangular framework of those times, stands apart because of Honey Irani's well-defined characters.
Amrita as the selfish elder sister has the author-backed role that keeps her unabashedly gray throughout the movie without attributing any simplistic or moralistic reason for her bad behaviour. That is the first win for the script.
Jackie Shroff plays the rich businessman who is attracted to Amrita and believes it is 'love at first sight' and is ready to jump into marriage. As he interacts with the other sister, played by Juhi, he starts understanding the real meaning of love and decides to marry her - when Amrita ditches him at the altar. And, he stays true to Juhi after that. This decisiveness is what makes his character refreshing; contrast to those countless movies where the hero dilly-dallies between two heroines/ marriages because he is morally weak; and it is instead attributed to force of circumstances or death-bed promises or similar cliches!
Juhi plays the meek submissive sister cast in the bharatiya-nari image. Her transformation is more appearance-related though she does get her moment of glory when she learns to stand-up to her aggressive sister towards the end of the movie.
The second half drags with few plot points to keep the story moving. Defter editing would have helped. The one jarring plot point is the behavior of Saeed Jaffrey as the girls' father. He disowns Amrita when she returns; she starts to live with Juhi-Jackie and wreaking havoc in their marriage. The plot keeps him out of the equation - he is ostensibly in denial. Considering he was always over protective of Juhi - this tantamounts to 'lazy and convenient' writing!
Amrita as the selfish elder sister has the author-backed role that keeps her unabashedly gray throughout the movie without attributing any simplistic or moralistic reason for her bad behaviour. That is the first win for the script.
Jackie Shroff plays the rich businessman who is attracted to Amrita and believes it is 'love at first sight' and is ready to jump into marriage. As he interacts with the other sister, played by Juhi, he starts understanding the real meaning of love and decides to marry her - when Amrita ditches him at the altar. And, he stays true to Juhi after that. This decisiveness is what makes his character refreshing; contrast to those countless movies where the hero dilly-dallies between two heroines/ marriages because he is morally weak; and it is instead attributed to force of circumstances or death-bed promises or similar cliches!
Juhi plays the meek submissive sister cast in the bharatiya-nari image. Her transformation is more appearance-related though she does get her moment of glory when she learns to stand-up to her aggressive sister towards the end of the movie.
The second half drags with few plot points to keep the story moving. Defter editing would have helped. The one jarring plot point is the behavior of Saeed Jaffrey as the girls' father. He disowns Amrita when she returns; she starts to live with Juhi-Jackie and wreaking havoc in their marriage. The plot keeps him out of the equation - he is ostensibly in denial. Considering he was always over protective of Juhi - this tantamounts to 'lazy and convenient' writing!