DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE, released in 1995, continues to inspire and motivate a number of storytellers to this date, even after [almost] two decades of its release. Now debutant director Shashank Khaitan borrows the essence from Aditya Chopra’s all-time classic film and gives an altogether new spin to it. Result: HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA.
HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA is akin to the entertainers we had relished in 1980s and 1990s, using the time-tested template [boy meets girl, love blossoms, boy/girl’s authoritarian parent acts as a roadblock], but Shashank makes sure to prettify it with dollops of entertainment, light-hearted drama, heartfelt emotions and of course, harmonious songs that linger in your memory. Most importantly, the chemistry between its lead pair — Varun and Alia — is simply electrifying, which acts as the icing on the cake.
In a nutshell, HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA is a fascinating youth drama + family entertainer that delivers big time.
The plot, first! When Kavya Pratap Singh [Alia Bhatt], a chirpy, yet feisty girl from Ambala, decides to make a trip to Delhi for her marriage shopping, she meets a young, carefree Delhi lad, Humpty Sharma [Varun Dhawan]. Humpty’s father [Kenny Desai] is the owner of a campus bookstore, where Humpty and his two best friends, Shonty [Gaurav Pandey] and Poplu [Sahil Vaid], have grown up together.
Kavya is unattainable for Humpty initially, which makes her even more endearing to him. But he is not the one to give up so easily. With some help from his two best friends, he finds out all about her and through an interesting turn of events [including a ploy to save Kavya’s friend Gurpreet’s marriage], they start growing closer to each other.
The more time they spend with each other, their love-hate banter grows, but their chemistry is apparent. They are both different, yet very similar as people.
Once Kavya’s trip ends, she heads back to Ambala, knowing very well that her father, the very strict, yet loving Mr. Singh [Ashutosh Rana], would never accept her love for Humpty. But even though they both weren’t looking for love, love happened. So Humpty, accompanied by his two friends, decides to go get Kavya. That’s the beginning of a journey for him that he wouldn’t have imagined undertaking even in the wildest of his dreams.
Humpty, against all odds, decides to convince Kavya’s family to agree to his alliance with her. Does he succeed in his mission?
HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA is a quintessential Bollywood romance and ticks all the customary boxes that make a love story work. Yet, Shashank Khaitan makes sure the screenwriting incorporates several amusing and compelling episodes that steer clear of rusty formulas that we are used to watching in films of this genre. Shashank also steers clear of full-scale melodrama, loud and familiar masala and earsplitting background score, which could’ve seeped in naturally, given the genre of the film. He keeps it subtle, but makes sure the film wins you over. The sequences between Varun and Ashutosh Rana are the highpoint of the film. I’d like to single out the sequence at the railway station; it’s incredible. Of course, the ones between Varun and Alia are the soul of the enterprise and the chemistry makes it all the more interesting.
As a storyteller, Shashank knows his fundas right and he gives his lead actors a well-knit, cohesive screenplay to peg their acting skills. Additionally, the film is brimming with several earnest episodes, besides decorating the sequences with witty lines. Furthermore, the soundtrack compliments the proceedings delightfully. ‘Samjhawan’ is hugely popular, while ‘Saturday’ has caught on big time too. The vibrant colors of North India are captured proficiently by the DoP [Neha Parti Matiyani].
You can’t help but get fully sold on the charming performances pitched in by the principal cast. In fact, it won’t be erroneous to state that Varun and Alia add strength and solidity to their respective parts. Varun gets the attitude of the character spot-on and pulls up a winning act. He reveals a sharp timing for comedy, but springs a big, big surprise in the emotional ones. In short, he makes you sit up, watch and applaud his act. Alia seems to be making the right career choices. HIGHWAY and 2 STATES specifically proved that she could transcend the glamour quotient and HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA substantiates the fact that she will be the top contender at the awards season next year — with as many as three diverse performances getting nominated for the top honors.
Moreover, it’s difficult to take your eyes off Varun and Alia when they’re on screen. Above and beyond, the chemistry between them is crackling.
Siddharth Shukla makes a comfortable switch from TV to the big screen. He gets the nuances of his character very well. Ashutosh Rana is top notch, essaying his part with gusto. It’s an absolute delight watching him in a challenging role after a hiatus. The supporting cast — Kenny Desai [Varun’s father], Jaswant Daman [Alia’s grandmother], Deepika Amin [Alia’s mother], Mahnaz Damania [Alia’s sister], Aditya Sharma [Alia’s brother], Gaurav Pandey — is just perfect, but I’d like to single out Sahil Vaid [Poplu], who’s simply terrific!
On the whole, HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA is a beautifully textured love story that wins you over. There’s no stopping this one from hitting the bull’s eye. Sure-shot winner!
Rating: 4/5
https://www.bollywoodhungama.com/moviemicro/criticreview/id/660747
Tags: Alia Bhatt Arjun Kapoor Critics Reviews Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania Reviews Shashank Khaitan Taran Adarsh
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania Movie Review by Rajasen
I was fourteen when more than half the boys in my school suddenly started wearing their shirts half-untucked. Not the slightly tousled careless untucking caused by a hurry or negligence, you understand, this was a very deliberate half-in, half-out approach followed strictly in an attempt to emulate Shah Rukh Khan’s Raj Malhotra. And this took place across barriers of cool and klutzy; the half-tuckers included those dolts who would go on to buy C-O-O-L Kuch Kuch Hota Hai bracelets as well as those wavy-haired guitarists who proclaimed Hindi films passé. It was inevitable.
On those of us of a certain vintage, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge made a tremendous impact. One of my oldest friends still measures her swoons by how good Khan looked when brushing his convertible-swept hair in Ho Gaya Hai Tujhko Toh Pyaar Sajna, and I have myself approached strangers in bars and used “Robbie ki party” as, um, as an icebreaker. (For the record, it works.) Whatever you may ironically say about that 20-year-old film now, the fact remains that — to us — it was one of those pop-culture waves that changed everything.
humpty1Which is why I’m wary of dismissing Shashank Khaitan’s Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania as a DDLJ-ripoff or parody or spoof, and instead commending it as a romance that just happens to feature a star-crossed pair of DDLJ-obsessives. Humpty, a grown fanboy who still weeps when watching that other movie’s climax, is more like romcom-obsessive Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project than any of our regular leading men. His prospective Dulhania is a girl who, having drunk her fill of Kareena juice, pouts her way through life in a way that suggests consequences don’t matter — until, naturally, they do.
It all begins, as most of us who have had to deal with a big family wedding these days can attest, with a lehnga. The girl demands one of those designer garments costing as much as a hatchback, and has decided she’s going to hustle up the money for it herself. The boy — whose first name comes from childhood chubbiness but who has taken the first four letters of his nickname to heart — finds himself charmed by this self-proclaimed firecracker, and decides he will help on this sartorial mission. Plans are hatched, jewellery is pawned, aunties are blackmailed…. And all this takes place in a whirl, the director slathering on eventful scenes with a narrative economy that feels almost too brisk.
It must here be mentioned that this frequently-farcical opening stretch takes more than some getting used to. We’ve been seeing this a fair bit these days — insouciant Punjabi kids with ‘attitude’ and a strut, flinging Facebooky terms at each other — and unlike, say, Mere Dad Ki Maruti, which nailed this zing (and the zingers) quite effortlessly, things constantly seem staged and unreal in this film. Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt are likeable enough right from the start, but it all feels like make-believe, like two kids playing it smart instead of playing it real. He’s always Varun, she’s always Alia, and such is their eagerness to appear natural that they almost yell the (mostly-clever) lines at each other. Things get positively deafening inside a coffee shop. But they are, as mentioned, easy performers and — like watching a school-play starring cousins you’re fond of — it’s easy enough to sit through this because the supporting cast is sparkling, and because Khaitan keeps the story purring. It feels like harmless, forgettable fun.
Then everything changes. This is confoundingly enough a film which follows a tremendously predictable graph — one channeling not just that Raj-Simran movie but also Maine Pyar Kiya, Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya and several of those charming Genelia D’Souza films from the South, like Bommarillu — and yet a film that manages to stay captivating and current. The strength of Khaitan’s film lies in how it’s not trying too hard, it’s not trying at reinventing the wheel, and instead being honest to two characters who, it becomes gradually apparent, aren’t who they said they were — or, more importantly, they aren’t who they thought they were.
So after Humpty pulls away from his girl Kaavya — quoting a Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge line verbatim and turning it into a plotpoint — Khaitan’s film begins to slow down and come into its own. The girl loses her invincible swagger once she’s home; the boy who surrounded himself by silly (but great) friends feels inadequate when facing genuine competition. This vulnerability gives Khaitan’s protagonists a certain depth, and makes up for that over-flippant first half where, it is now clear, they felt fake because they were being fake, and now that all the posturing is over, their story can begin in earnest. And it does.
If I’m making this sound like a serious film, I apologise. This is a lark, a goofy film where you know what’s going to happen but where you enjoy watching it unfold. The supporting cast is very solid indeed — special praise to Ashutosh Rana as Kavya’s Amrish-esque dad, plus Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pande as Poplu and Shonty, Humpty’s irresistibly loyal buddies — and television stud Siddharth Shukla is well cast here as an ideal man, one who we first see get off a car smiling so wide it looks like his cheekbones have been doing weights.
Alia Bhatt starts off cutesy and a tad too affected (her yoga inhalations are pure plastic, but then aren’t they supposed to be?) yet is charming enough to keep things bubbling over till the actors drop their guard, after which she shows off some serious talent — especially rocking the Arms Outstretched pose (©SRK). It is Varun Dhawan, however, who really takes this movie home. His Humpty is sweeter than he is roguish, and when this film calls for sincerity, he doles it out impressively. He creates a character worth caring about, and his chemistry with Bhatt is quite endearing.
When done well, there is no such thing as “too filmi.” Filmi people end up living filmi lives — and sometimes we get to watch. Good on you, Shashank Khaitan. Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania is the kinda film Simran would have loved.
Rating: 3.5/5
https://rajasen.com/2014/07/11/review-humpty-sharma-ki-dulhaniya/
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