The joy of simplicity
What great joy it is to watch a proper Bollywood Rom Com. It’s one of the movies which you don’t want to take effort to watch but would love to watch on TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I did the same for the second part of it which I got a chance to watch out of the blue. I was wanting to have the same experience for the first part, but didn’t really get a chance, so thought why not put some effort in watching rather than waiting for it. I am happy that it ended up being a fulfilling experience.
Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt are a great combo. In fact, Varun Dhawan is a proper Bollywood hero material. As much as he looks goofy on the outside, he’s able to emote well and get the audience to like his character. ‘Badlapur’ is a different story altogether but one need not demean him by saying that it’s the only good film he has done because he was the same in that when compared to his other movies but Sriram Raghavan’s casting was perfect that he used his commercial element to make people watch the movie. In fact, it’s due to Varun Dhawan people could believe in that character. It made people think that this could happen to even Bollywood heroes. That’s such brilliance. Wish only the final post credits song had been avoided. It’s too great a movie to have such a song.
Here in ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’ there is no such complexities. When the movie begins with Humpty (Varun Dhawan) being introduced as a playboy, I thought it was one of the ‘Student of the Year’ type of movies where everything would be big but thankfully it was rooted. Both the Delhi and Ludhiana part. These are the things people miss out in big budget extravaganza. They’d be of an opinion, that a handsome hero and a beautiful heroine would suffice, no matter what the setting is. The director, Shashank Khaitan, deserves the credit to have kept the believability factor in. Except for the opening scene and the scene where they try to mark the groom as gay, every other scene worked like a charm. Thankfully they didn’t include the “gay factor” to close the groom chapter.
For a romcom, the emotions were at check. It was handled in the right way. The plot is as silly as going to a Metro to get a designer lehenga but it’s the authenticity in which it was done makes us believe in the film and get into it. Rather than falling in the template it plays with the template beautifully. SRK BGM, Alia’s off shoulders and lehengas makes us believe that she’s next-door dream, there are a couple of emotional scenes, a kissing scene at right juncture, an amazing song, and the music of that amazing song as BGM in important scenes. In a way it ticks all the boxes in the template and that too without any apology. Kudos for that. Every film need not be a ‘Kapoor and Sons’ where it must be an impactful film in the Bollywood blueprint, but movies can be as simple and enjoyable as this too.
The silliest of emotions work, be it returning the gold jewellery after blackmailing an illicit relationship, be it the friends and father who give money for Kavya’s (Alia Bhatt) Lehenga, she gifting a Celerio. These are scenes written like a college kid in Annual Day play, but it still works. Thanks to the sincerity. The actors too have done their part in really believing in what they’re doing. Wish the naivety stays with them when they become bigger stars.
Finally, Alia Bhatt, can’t she keep a foot wrong when it comes to acting in a proper Bollywood film, can she. She’s a great actor and people appreciate her for ‘Highway’, ‘Raazi’, ‘Udta Punjab’ etc. but on the other hand it’s films like ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’, ‘Two States’ which really make us fall in love with her. She’s epitome of class when it comes to modern urban setting cinema. I intentionally omitted ‘Kapoor and Sons’, ‘Dear Zindagi’ type of films because you can’t hate her in those films. With that one emotional breakdown scene she’d sweep you off your feet. But even without that, with just her lehenga and off shoulders she can still woo you. Not only for the looks but with acting too.
No matter what type of films come, hope the joy of these Big Budget Bollywood films stay relevant and don’t want the makers to take the audience for granted, just because they want to enjoy a happy film.
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