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Thursday, April 25, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE
EDITOR'S PICK
`Shuddh
Desi Romance`: Flat characters, stilted performances in forgettable flick
Rating: 1.5/5
While watching light-hearted love stories also known as rom-coms, there are two
reactions that come to mind. "What next?" And "Who Cares?"
This annoying film, masquerading as a modern-day parable on What Young People
Want, definitely falls in the who cares category.
The three main characters are so confused about life, sex, love and
commitment(in that order) that you wonder why a film was scripted about them and
their annoying lives in the first place. The "hero", if we may call
him that, is not only commitment-phobic, but is quite simply impervious to any
kind of gravity in life.
Don't misunderstand. He takes himself very seriously. But it's hard to take him
seriously as he vacillates between two women, both equally absurd in their
libertines' apparel borrowed straight out of some stale Julia Roberts-Susan
Sarandon film which probably got shelved because the hero ran away with the
cameraman.
This, then, is your "Shuddh Desi Romance", so contaminated with
candour that it doesn't realize the difference between being sincerily searching
and artificially scandalous.
Jaideep Sahni has written some remarkable films for Yashraj in the past. Among
his best writing are Ram Gopal Varma's "Company",Yashraj's "Chak
De.." and Dibakar Bannerjee's "Khosla Ka Ghosla".
Sadly, "Shuddh Desi Romance" ranks as Sahni's worst-written endeavour
to date. The film has only three main characters, one of whom slips in and out
of two women's lives as though he had seen Yash Chopra's "Daag" so
many times that he knew that the tangle within the triangle would get resolved
in the last reel.
"Shuddh Desi Romance" is not the kind of film that obtains or even
seeks a decent resolution. The plot is happy to let the protagonist Raghu stew
in his own orgasmic juices. The guy is plainly horny all the time. As played by
the over-zealous Sushant Singh Rajput, the hero doesn't even try to hide his
hard-on. He wears his libido like a badge of honour and flaunts his carnality in
front of the two ladies whom he encounters.They for reasons best known to them,
seem to enjoy his company after an initial bout of demurral.
Men are often to think with their dicks. But women???!!!!
It is baffling how a protagonist as low-life and sleazy as Raghu can attract two
attractive feisty free-willed women. Or why they would encourage his advances
when they know he thinks only with his ...well to use a term Rishi Kapoor uses
with such endearing picturesqueness...pappu in the pants.
Pappu in the pants has rollicking time. Wish we could join
him...it...whatever!!! Curiously the hero and his horniness are like two
different entities in the film. No bumper prizes for guessing which of the two
entities gets an upper hand in the script that seems hellbent on celebrating
what, for the want of a better term, we must describe as low-life
libidinousness.
For all his talk of "zoron ka attraction", Raghu, as played by Sushant,
comes across as a wimpy womanizer, scoring brownie points with any woman who
opens her mouth to let his tongue in. If the dick-head hero had been played by a
more intelligent actor, he would probably have been interesting. In Sushant's
hands, Raghu is an irksome skirt-chaser. Nothing more.
The two women are more interesting (aren't they always?). Especially Parineeti
Chopra whose dumbly defiant smoking swearing character Gayatri acquires some
stability through the actress' fearless embrace of the camera space. No matter
how frustratingly ill-conceived Gayatri's rebellious attitude may be, Parineeti
owns up to the character's weaknesses like a man.
Debutant Vaani Kapoor plays her very awkwardly-written character with a
mysterious smile that suggests it knows something that we don't. Not that we
care.
Both Sushant and Parineeti's characters and their grating chemistry are troubled
by an uneasy sense of deja vu. Director Maneesh Sharma makes the two characters
carryovers of Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma in "Band Baaja Baaraat".
Really, the twosome here should be put into a banned Baja Baraat. The wedding
shenanigans so delectably unselfconscious in "Band Baaja Baaraat" here
seem laboured to suit the director's purposes of creating a sense of nonchalant
sexual liberation in a smalltown where every potential voyeur can peep into his
neighbour's home without being charged with voyeuristic trespassing.
To the cinematographer Manu Anand's credit the authentic outdoors of Jaipur do
not end up mocking the inherently mockable material. Most of the principal
actors barring Rishi Kapoor give over-rehearsed performance projected as a
laboured casualness.
Rishi Kapoor as the wedding caterer is the exception, sinking his teeth into his
role even as our hearts sink to the ground at the self-defeating numbing
verbosity of the three main characters.
Most of the film is like a clumsy radio play. The three main characters in this
lust-triangle just speak and speak about their pathetic selflimiting world.
Beyond a point we feel like reluctant eavesdroppers in an ill-managed menage a
trois.
Flat and phoney, the selfconscious realism of the small-time gender-equations in
"Shuddh Desi Romance" leave us untouched, unamused and cold.
In terms of pointless posturing, this one ranks even lower than Yashraj's
"Neil 'N' Nikki".
Live-in relationships never felt less inviting.
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From
the director of Band Baaja Baaraat and the writer of Chak De! India, comes a
fresh and very real love story about the hair-raising minefield between love,
attraction and commitment — SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE — finally, a romantic comedy
that tells it like it is.
Starring in this classy, candid look at the affairs of the heart in today’s
desi heartland are the endearing Rishi Kapoor, exceptionallyt talented
Sushant Singh Rajput, and the versatile Parineeti Chopra, along with debutant
Vaani Kapoor.
SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE is directed by Maneesh Sharma, written by Jaideep Sahni, and
produced by Aditya Chopra.
Shuddh Desi Romance promotion at Mudra communication Institute - Stills
Cast of Shuddh Desi Romance on Radio Mirchi
Shuddh Desi Romance promoted on sets of Zee TV's DID Super Mom - Stills
Parineeti, Sushant's Shuddh Desi Romance at Mehrangarh Fort - Stills