Singer Guru Randhawa has finally made his way to the big screen with G Ashok directorial, Kuch Khatta Ho Jaay. Co-starring Saiee M Manjrekar, Anupam Kher, Ila Arun, Paritosh Tripathi, Paresh Ganatra and Atul Shrivastava, the movie has a run time of 125.16 minutes. The movie is set to release on February 16, and we bring you how it fairs. Set in the scenic beauty of Agra, the movie follows the journey of Iraa Mishra, an IAS aspirant portrayed by Saiee, and Heer Chawla, her classmate played by Guru. Kher’s Brij Bhushan Chawla, Heer’s grandfather, plays an important role in their relationship.
Amid the demand for a great-grandchild in the Chawla household and emotional blackmail by stepmother and step-sister in the Mishra family, the two love birds try to find a solution to their problem. Exhausted from their families’ constant requests to get married, the love birds decide to crack a deal, get married, and support Iraa’s dream of becoming an IAS officer. Heer, the lover boy that he is, proclaims his support to his soon-to-be-wife. Well, this leads to the couple getting married. However, on their first night, Iraa gives Heer a contract stating the terms and conditions of their marriage. They ultimately decide to not take their relationship ahead of friendship until Iraa completes her dream.
A series of misunderstandings leads the family members of the Chawla house to believe that Iraa is pregnant. The couple decides to go along with the misunderstanding so that the family will let Iraa rest and she can focus more on her studies. Cue a montage of the couple trying to fool the family with fake cramps, fake morning sickness, and fake tummies. Amid it all they meet a school friend, who turns out to be a gynacologist. With the help of their friend, they fool the family, until the day of Iraa’s exam when they get into an accident. They stage a miscarriage, which is not handled well by Heer’s grandfather, who suffers a heart attack.
This leads to Iraa feeling guilty and reaching out to Heer. She asks him if they can try for a baby. Well, the rest of the movie is just a dragged-out mess of confrontations and a stereotypical plotline with Heer asking Iraa to find him a bride as she asks for separation after getting to know that she can’t become a mother due to the accident. The entire comedy-drama, frankly just seems like a stereotypical soap drama that the makers might as well have made it into an Indian television serial. The tacky and dragged-out jokes cracked in the movie are dated back to the 2000s era which fail to evoke any laughter or even a smile.
The lackluster chemistry between the leads and the actors failing to emotionally connect with their characters leaves you with a boring yet predictable story that can be watched with the family as background noise. Frankly, there were many beautiful emotional sequences in the movie, where the actors could have proved their mettle with their performance, but the scenes just come across as fake and bland. Not only Guru and Saiee, but also actors like Anupam Kher, Ila Arun, and Atul Shrivastava fail to ignite any feelings during the emotional scenes.
The one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb, amidst all the dated jokes was the movie’s way of addressing queer people. Quite frankly making fun of a community, that has been trying very hard to make an identity for itself, making sure their stereotypical portrayal in the media gets called out, with dialogues like "Meetha bechne se aap bhi meethe ho gaye kya?" leaves you feeling uncomfortable. Isn’t it high time we forgo using homophobic slurs to address the community?
Apart from all the cons, the dialogues penned by Vijay Pal Singh, Raajj Salluja, Niket Pandey, and Shobhit Sinha transport you to the era of Sooraj Barjatya films where sacrificing your love and happiness for the sake of the family was the norm. The dialogues tend to fall flat and do not evoke any emotions due to the lack of dialogue delivery by the cast. Guru Randhawa's songs seem to be one of the very few saving graces of the film as he is seen truly in his element while performing on it with his co-star Saiee M Manjrekar. While, the cameo of Telugu actor and filmmaker Brahmanandam Kanneganti, known for his comic roles, leaves the theatre with hoots and cheers, his poorly dubbed dialogues come across as jarring.
All in all, the G Ashok directorial family drama, Kuch Khatta Ho Jaay, is a passable movie.
Ratings: 2.5
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