Shuddha Desi Romance – The Sweetest, Realest Desi Love Story of The Year! Go Fall in Love With It!
Rating: 4/5
Shuddha Desi Romance is perhaps the first film where a lavatory becomes the scene-stealer. Throughout the film, you have lead actors Sushant Singh Rajput and Parineeti Chopra using a unisex lavatory as an escape route from marriage. Neither of their characters uses the place for the intended purpose, but in an ingenious way, a similar satisfaction is fulfilled – their tension is relieved. Half the credit for conceiving this unique metaphorical narrative device goes to director Maneesh Sharma
and writer Jaideep Sahni; the other half to leads Sushant, Parineeti and newcomer Vaani Kapoor and the rest of the cast, that includes a memorable supporting performance by Rishi Kapoor, for successfully bringing this device to the big-screen with minty, mischievous, lip-smacking fun and sparkling chemistry in Shuddha Desi Romance, one of the sweetest, realest desi love stories of the year. Some say food is the most important aspect that decides the success or failure of an Indian wedding. If that’s true, then there’s just one word to describe Shuddha Desi Romance: YUM!
Jaideep Sahni said in an interview with Screen Preview that his film is about ‘people who are trying to understand the meaning of love, attraction and commitment’, adding in the end that he ‘tried to find answers for himself throughout the film’. Maneesh Sharma puts in that he’s ‘pretty much like the characters in the film, whose idea of romance changes from time to time’. Both men have been through the three phases of romance and have a variety of things of things to say about marriage in Shuddha Desi Romance. Fortunately, they never take themselves too seriously, and the film remains consistently charming and committed to the themes it dramatises. It is ‘saat-phere’ better than Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, the highly overrated banal offering with predictable situations and stale dialogues that somehow managed to include itself in the hundred-crore club.
Guess we Indians still fall for icky romanticized love-stories and don’t like stories with real people, real situations, real content and believable dialogues. It is these films that have more spark, more relatability and not shoddy works like Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. I urge you to give Shuddha Desi Romance a chance – you won’t take long to fall in love with it.
The film begins with Sushant Singh, dressed up for marriage, talking directly to us (intermittently, characters speak out and talk to us directly, breaking the fourth wall) about his problem with the idea of marriage. We learn that he’s Raghuram Sitaram aka Raju, the bridegroom who’s to leave along-with his friends and an avuncular wedding-planner Tauji (Rishi Kapoor) to marry a girl called Tara. The problem is that he’s hardly ready to marry, and he shares this problem with Gayatri, a wedding guest invited by Tauji, as they are travelling in the bus. When everybody else is asleep, Raghu ends up stealing a kiss and the two share an awkward smooch that probably sets the tone of the rest of the film. There is delightful awkwardness when Raghu tries excusing himself from the mandap so he can escape, and when he does escape, the scene turns even funnier when a tapori, inspired by Bollywood films into thinking he can seize the opportunity, offers his hand to the girl and gets kicked out. The film makes it even clearer here its not typical Bollywood. The abandoned bride Tara doesn’t weep like a Bollywood bride usually would; instead, she asks for a cold-drink.
The runaway bridegroom (only in India!) soon begins a live-in relationship with Gayatri. They kiss and cuddle a lot, and have their happiest time in the bedroom. Sushant and Parineeti have a natural, playful chemistry that’s a breath of fresh air from the usual fumes we’re forced to inhale in regular Bollywood love stories. But when marriage bells ring, the two get a cold feet and we eagerly wait to see who shall be left stranded.
What threatens to hamper the excellently fluid, unpretentious script is the product placement of Coca-Cola, and I blame the creative team that worked out with Maneesh Sharma to include their product in crucial, very crucial scenes. I hate to see good, dramatic moments get ruined by product placement, and I declare I’ll strand Coca-cola… at least for seven days. But the actors try their best to work out even these jarring moments. Sushant Singh Rajput has one of the best, most natural boy-next-door charm that works excellent in his screen performances; its a relief he left that clunker of a serial ‘Pavitra Rishta’ for the silver-screen. Parineeti Chopra has the best part in the film, and her dialogue delivery is totally unaffected. In their scenes together, the actors are hardly worried about their own appearances, and give themselves to the scene and each other. That is what many ‘lead actors’ have yet not learned. As Tara, newcomer Vaani Kapoor has to play an alternate version of Gayatri, and she’s good too; she has
less chemistry with Rajput than Chopra but in a way, she was supposed to, otherwise we’d begin disliking Rajput for his treatment towards her.
First day first show at Inox, I observed that a majority of the audience goers for this film are youngsters. The film has a broader appeal, and deserves a broader audience. Like Maneesh Sharma said in his interview ‘It’s everyone’s film and shows a real life love story’. Go fall in love with this film.
ourvadodara.in Rating Guide:
* = Avoid!!
** = Rent It / TV Premiere
*** = Book The Cheapest Seats
**** = Book The Best Seats
***** = Book The Best Seats + Buy The DVD!
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