A lot of the movies I've seen this year I've been able to enjoy even while recognizing that they've had serious flaws or could have been a lot better. This was another such film. There were several funny moments, some of the performances were endearing, and, like most Indian cinema I've seen, the musical/dance sequences were energetic and well constructed. There were two big problems, however, and they are what I'll be discussing.
The first, and more major of the issues, is that the male lead character was just not likeable enough to root for. The first half of the film follows Kavya (Alia Bhatt, who has me wondering how quickly they shoot films in India, as this is her third starring role I've seen this year) as she goes to another city for a few weeks, hoping to make enough money to buy an expensive, designer dress for her wedding. She first meets Humpty (Varun Dehawan) when she finds him terrorizing her Uncle, hoping to threaten his way to a better grade on an exam. Their paths cross several more times during her stay and, as he helps her get the money for dress, they (predictably) fall in love. In the second half of the film, Humpty follows Kavya back to her hometown, trying to convince her father to let her marry him instead. Her father agrees, on the condition that Humpty can provide a single reason why the seemingly perfect Angad (Siddharth Shukla) is not a good match for her. In order for the audience to be invested in this part of the movie, they have to rooting for Humpty to succeed, something I was not able to do. A single scene earlier in the film would have been enough to solve the problem. They needed to show, at some point, Humpty doing something nice for someone purely out of the goodness of his heart. Instead, every single benevolent action he takes can be traced back to his desire to make Kavya like him. This made me suspicious of the character, as it seemed like he could easily just be trying to get in her pants. Scoundrels can be likeable characters, but we need to believe there is a deeper layer underneath, which I never got from this character. He has two friends who help him throughout the movie, and the extreme lengths they will go to, just to help their friend, make them far more likeable and pleasant characters to watch.
The film's second problem is a result of making Humpty's task of proving Angad an unsuitable match incredibly difficult. I said earlier that Angad is seemingly perfect. Eventually it becomes obvious that he is genuinely just as perfect as he seems. Not only does he have the "movie star" good looks to put Humpty to shame, but he is also by far the nicest character in the entire film. I don't think I'm giving away any true spoilers by saying that, at the end of the film, Kavya's father relents, and she is allowed to marry Humpty instead. The problem is that the effect this will have on Angad is never explored. The filmmakers probably thought it would be too depressing to show something bad happening to the nicest guy in the film. They may have been right, but the sudden disappearance of the character is a glaring omission. Even if it didn't occur on screen, the scene where he was told that his wedding was off must still have happened, something I was well aware of while watching the festivities at the film's end. I felt that it was a cheat for the film to shy away from this reality. Would it have been too cliché to reveal that he also had someone else he would rather marry? Maybe. Is anything too cliché for a run of the mill romantic comedy? Either way, at film's end, Angad became the giant invisible elephant in the room, begging for some sort of resolution.
No matter how silly or clichéd a romantic comedy is, it's off to a good start if both of its leads are likeable and you are able to root for them to be together. While I enjoyed this film, it lacked these crucial elements.
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