Take a story, edit the characters, and present it in an easy way through music and subtlety, and you hope to flood the audience and the entertainment industry with a new wave of fresh air. Fortunately, the audiences are clever and kick it into the less-visited stream of mediocre attempts at inventive filmmaking. This film is one such mediocre attempt.
The year is 1995. An ignorant Kumar Sanu fan Prem (Khurrana), who runs his father's audio video shop in Haridwar, finds himself struggling with the threads and aftermath of a forced wedding. Equally ignorant are his family who think that the arrival of an educated girl (Pednekar) in their house would inspire happiness and bring about prosperity. Things get out of hand when Prem openly derides his wife's bulkiness. What follows is a seen-before parade of almost friendly intra- and inter-familial tiffs originating from this hassled marriage.
Then the film uses same old methods for salvaging this implicated complication. As a result, predictability takes over and that fresh air turns stale. Now the setting is fine, where the guy is a 10th-grade failure and the girl a teacher aspirant: perfect source of egos that could wreak havoc. One senses the climax even before the film starts narrating its story, thereby losing its sheen. The expectations that a twist or a story arc would save the play ends in disappointment.
Khurrana is good, but newcomer Pednekar is better. The former is in a different avatar than whatever he was in his previous disaster Hawaizaada (2015). Pednekar acts through her face and is only supported by her portly frame. Supporting cast is brilliant.
Writing is good at parts starting with the collective wedding (samuhik vivah) and ending with a fun game. The no-nonsense narration always comes directly to the point. The short running time is a relief and so is the sporadic family humor that is better than the story itself. The mature setup and characterization further adds into the pleasure. The score sounded plagiarized, but the songs by Anu Malik are good. Welcoming Kumar Sanu to the industry after a long hiatus gives it brownie points. Great camera work captures the drama well while the native language adds to the originality, unlike how it was in PK (2014).
But if there is a best thing about the film, then it is the virtue of the husband who accepts his failures rather coming as a winner.
BOTTOM LINE: The attempt is mediocre narrating a clichéd story, but for the multiple messages that it conveys and a simple storytelling, it is worth a lazy afternoon watch. 5/10.
Can be watched with a typical Indian family?