Shaadi Ke Side Effects, Hindi Bollywood Film Movie review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * * *
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Shaadi Ke side Effects(Hindi) Rating: * * * Laugh friendly
for sure but nothing path-breaking. At the core are some done to death ,still
laugh-worthy internet jokes about marriage and convincing performances by Vidya
and Farhan.
Hindi Film Review
Johnson Thomas
Film Review: Shaadi ke Side Effects: Typically filmy,
humorous but absurd take on marriage
Cast: Vidya Balan, Farhan Akhtar, Ram Kapoor and Vir Das
Director: Saket Chaudhary
Rating:
* *
*
It’s
not a new take in any manner. We’ve seen so many Hollywood movies going through
similar motions in order to spice-up a marriage and the jokes are all the kind
that could well be downloaded from the Internet. So Ekta kapoor, Pritish Nandy
and Saket Chaudhary’s brand extension to
Pritish Nandy communications’ surprise hit, ‘Pyar ke Side Effects’ is
not exactly a novel experience even though it’s a fairly humorous one!
The basic inspiration
stems from the 1988 John Hughes comedy, ‘She is having a baby,’ but while
Saket’s film goes much beyond the birth of a child, the original ends at that
event. But Saket’s script for the film
dioesn’t delve too deep into the psyche of a married couple. It prefers to draw
out caricatures created from a series of dotted events in the life of a married
man, albeit with convenient homilies on gender politics within the confines of
a marriage. It’s wafer-thin enticement at best.
The
star-cast is different- In fact, a much
more accomplished one. Vidya Balan and Farhan Akhtar as Trisha and Sid, make
for a believable couple striving to make their marriage work. And it’s all
credit to their individual talents. The segmented script which goes back and
forth in time in the first fifteen odd
minutes, settles down into a steady enough rhythm. It almost appears as if you
have a runaway laugh-riot on your hands- but pre-meditated pulls and breaks on
the narrative foil the fun element, transforming the light-hearted entreaty
into a laborious and tedium inducing one.
Sid(Farhan) and Trisha(Vidya Balan) behave
like new-found lovers who set-off sparks after a rendezvous in a bar. Both are
married and talk about their respective spouses as the ones who are ruining
their happiness. A few scenes later, prompted by a Hotel manager who takes them
to task for their exhibitionism, the two reveal that they are indeed married to each other and engage
in such lurid fantasies in order to spice-up their marriage. Then comes the fly
in the ointment- a child. Trisha is pregnant and Sid , the struggling musician
is not too happy at the prospect of an added responsibility. Especially since
Trisha is the family bread-earner. They convince themselves to go ahead with
the birth and once the child comes into their lives, their love appears to have
gone out of the window. Trisha is busy doing the right thing by her baby while
Sid finds himself on the outside , looking in!
The premise is quite
believable but the treatment , set-up and exposition is not. Especially since
we don’t exactly find out how the struggling musician earns money enough to
spend for an expensive bike, fortnightly stays in a five-star or a PG- leave
alone a well-dressed cultured ayah(a.k.a Bai played by Ila Arun-one who charges
Rs.15,000, no less per month). Ram Kapoor assays the role of a two-faced
informal marriage guru, Vir Das –a whacky, struggling model , Rati Agnihotri
–Trisha’s always critical (of Sid) mother and Purab Kohli, the neighbor who
looks more and more like the ideal husband and father for Sid’s family.
The script has other
problems too. The husband-wife politicking looks overly exaggerated and the
characters are never completely believable because they yo-yo from one extreme to another. Especially
that of the wife, who’d rather not believe ill of her husband who is living-up
to all the signs of someone having an affair on the side. In fact the entire
run of play is slanted towards making the women look and sound stupid and
clueless. After all it’s Sid’s point of view. The narration is by Sid of
course. A Sid who strives to garner
sympathy for all husbands with his woe-begone tale. One who makes his three
year old daughter take a guided horse-ride on a busy main street and then
forgets all about her(to the extent of even leaving her behind) while he gets
caught-up in a soccer match on TV at a local café. He also gets his beer guzzling noisy friends
home to watch a soccer match while his wife and kid are resting in the other
room.
When the truth comes out
and that too towards the end, the wife
is given the token right to put her hubby through the wringer before the
inevitable happens.
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