Cast: Parineeti Chopra, Sushant Singh Rajput, Vaani Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor
Director: Maneesh Sharma
New Delhi, Sat Sep 07 : The nicest part of this romcom, which triangulates girl-boy-girl in a manner Bollywood is just waking up to, is that it lets its characters talk. Like, you know, real conversations, where faces are turned to each other, where the baat-cheet between a girl and guy moves from checking-each-other-for-size -banter to will-our-noses-fit-if-we-kiss to can’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other level. Yes, that kind of locked-eyed, quickening breaths, leaping-libidos chat. Writer Jaideep Sahni, the man behind a bunch of excellent films, including one of my all-time favourites, Rocket Singh, lifts Shuddh Desi Romance: his characters talk, and they make us listen.
Raghu (Rajput) is a layabout who does this and that, and that includes being a tourist guide in Jaipur, and hiring himself out as a “smart baraati ” to raise the tone of marriage parties in exchange for cash. It is in his own baraat that he gets to know spunky, outspoken Gayatri (Chopra), and such are the sparks between them that all ideas of wedded bliss are flung out of the bus window they are travelling in. Which leaves bejeweled bride Tara (Kapoor) stranded at her own mandap. Which in turn, leads to our triangle — Raghu is scared of shaadis and commitment, Gayatri is equally chary of saying “I Do”, and Tara searches for answers, with all three looking for a way forward.
These are young people, whose passions and confusions mirror the young of today. The film is set in Jaipur, which allows it to peddle some pretty locations, and leheriya dupattas and safas (it is a Yashraj film, after all), and a song that is all “gulabi” in honour of the Pink City. But itcould be an anywhere story because these are anywhere people. And that’s the strength of the film, which comes out best through Parineeti Chopra. She plays her Gayatri minus varnish, minus artifice, without letting any of the effort show, and wins us over : this is an actor getting better with each part.
