Unfunny Comedy:
This film has not been directed by Raaj Shaandilya, but he has co-written it with director Ishrat R Khan, and is one of the producers, so some of the creative inputs must have been his. Luv Ki Arrange Marriage falls into the Dream Girl formula of small towners trying to get bold, but within limits. No sex please, and all that.
If this were a French farce, nobody would have batted an eyelid if the father of the groom and mother of the bride fell in love and wanted to marry. But here, some crude comedy is generated by the concept, with a dash of melodrama added. Had such an idea been attempted a few decades earlier, it would have been a tear-jerker and ended with a suicide. So this blase new attitude could be seen as a sort of progress.
Luv (Sunny Singh) lives with his father, Prem Kumar (Annu Kapoor), who is the neighbourhood Casanova. All the women around flirt with him while their husbands gnash their teeth and think of ways to kill him. His age is mentioned as 55, but a lot of ageist banter is directed at him. Prem, his lookalike sister (Kapoor in drag), her husband (Mushtaq Khan) and Luv go from Orchha to Bhopal to see a potential bride for the young man. Ishika (Avneet Kaur), the daughter of Supriya (Supriya Pathak), a bidi-smoking garage owner, is rude to Luv and rejects him. Luv is rude right back and they all storm out. Riots break out in the city, however, and they are forced to take shelter in Supriya’s home, where other random characters, including a wandering thief (Paritosh Tripathi), and alcoholic grandfather (Sudhir Pandey) hang around. The visitors apparently can’t leave the city, but they have innumerable costume changes.
Supriya has a suitor (Rajpal Yadav), who is unable to express his love, and is friend zoned. A lot of cracks are made about his short stature, and one thought in this age of political correctness, all body-shaming was to be avoided. Luv and Ishika inevitably fall in love, only to find that Prem and Supriya plan to marry! So obviously the young couple has to ‘sacrifice’ their love for their parents’ happiness.
After coming up with the one-line idea of an older couple romancing—though these two are far from senior citizen stage—the writers and director do not know how to proceed. So they add really loud and terrible comic interludes, which are anything but funny. Supriya is quickly transformed from badass to coy bride, with the actress resorting to her Khichdi style acting. In fact, all the actors must have been told to “do comedy” and make as much of a racket while they are overacting. The dialogue is so overwritten, that characters do not speak like normal people, but like potential stand-up comics rehearing their sets.
Annu Kapoor should have been tired of playing tharki buddha (lecherous old man), but he appears to have no qualms playing the vulgar philanderer, who claims his ghagra-chasing is just friendship. Sunny Singh and Avneet Kaur must be the most bland romantic couple in recent times, The film is set in Orchha, a beautiful temple town in MP, and the film looks good only when the camera occasionally pans on the exteriors. It must be the lure of subsidies that result in such films being shot in small towns, but really, a film like this just gives the place a bad name.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
