Jab We Met: On Geet & Sorrow

Jab We Met is the 2007 hit romantic comedy that has now become a popculture staple, giving us beautiful songs, great fashion moments, catchy dialogues and an iconic character that aspiring actors often recite monologues of when auditioning. But while the film has long been celebrated for its upbeat nature, what often gets overlooked is how minutely the film presents sadness in its female character. 

The movie – as described by Wikipedia – revolves around Aditya, a heartbroken business tycoon, who aimlessly boards a train to escape his depressing life. He meets Geet, a bubbly Punjabi girl, and due to a series of unfortunate events, gets pulled into her crazy life. 

Geet, a now iconic character, is known for being full of life. She talks non-stop (even talks in her sleep), declares herself to be her favorite person, doesn’t hold grudges, is spontaneous and always up for a good time. Her general philosophy of ‘making the most out of life’ is crystal clear the moment she shows up on screen. But what makes her character even better is the fact that she is allowed to be depressed for 50% of the movie. She is given the space for the entirety of second half of the film to deal with the betrayal of a man she loved, try to come to terms with the course her life has taken and simultaneously be confused by everything around her. 

After she runs away from her loving family to be with a man she’s in love with, only to get betrayed by him, her happy-go-lucky world comes crashing down. She took a big risk, and it didn’t work out. Deciding not to go back home, she descends into a deep depression and starts living at a working women’s hostel as she teaches schoolchildren for a living. 

As we enter the second half of the film, we meet a Geet who is a shell of her former self. She doesn’t talk as much – is barely shown talking to people around her, her perspective towards life has changed – she is clearly more introspective, but likely questions herself a lot more, and she feels stuck, something she bemoans about when regretting her past decisions. Some people might consider her regret and her depression as anti-feminist – the character is, after all, made to live through the trauma of the consequences brought on by her carefree actions – but I’d argue, these things aren’t commonly portrayed in this light with female characters, especially in mainstream cinema. That makes Geet an even more of a unique character. 

Depression and confusion are two states of mind that audiences get uncomfortable with very fast, which in turn discourages storytellers from letting their characters feel the complete depth of those emotions. This is especially true for female characters who have the heavy burden of always being likable, whose negative emotions must be strongly regulated in order of not coming across as “too much”. But in Jab We Met, audiences follow Geet as she enjoys life to the fullest to living a life where she’s just going through the motions. We’re with her as she takes her time trying to figure out where she stands with herself, the future she envisioned for herself and considers the possibility of wanting something different. 

Jab We Met took the popular grumpy-sunshine trope, fleshed out the characters and their surroundings to make it more lived-in. But most of all, Geet had all the traits of being manic pixie dream girl (a popular stereotype where a type of female character is depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist), but the storyteller chose to give her a higher purpose. She goes through a complete character arc, and importantly, is given the grace of feeling the intensity of every emotion and coming out in the end, stronger and wiser.