He won’t take “no” for an answer; she jilts him at the altar. Please tell me why I’m supposed to like either of you two? Look, it’s just not that hard.
Wait. Actually, yes, yes it is that hard. Finding compatibility is one of the most difficult things there is. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t need “E-Harmony” or “J-Date” or “Playboy.” HOWEVER … on film it’s less about the couple falling for one another and more about selling themselves to the audience. When you make them be dicks, what are we supposed to do?
Badrinath Ki Dulhania begins with a history lesson about the 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act. As the movie takes place in the 21st century, the action of the groom’s family demanding a crippling dowry from the bride is illegal, but we’re either pretending this is still a thing or that the parents in question don’t care about the law. The film then makes several intros and adds a colorful exposition scene at the hospital. Two random babies are being born. When the boy is shown, the action cuts to a professor at a chalkboard which reads in both Hindi and English for good measure: “BOY = ASSET.” Then there’s a cut to a celebrating family. And, naturally, the announcement of “you have a girl” yields the professor educating us with “GIRL = LIABILITY” and a disappointed family. Subtle, sahib, subtle. I know this is intended for comic effect, but geez, this is worse than almost as bad as Mike Pence-minded Republicans. Reasons for why are not given, but are hinted at in financial terms. The dowry functions as the Indian way of leveling the playing field.
So it doesn’t take a whole lot to spell out the upcoming plot, right? Gonna be a guy who thinks he’s all that and he has to learn some respect for women or find himself Agra-vated by the lack of female in his life, right? Well, yeah.
Badri (Varun Dhawan) falls for Vaihedi (Alia Bhatt) the very second she tells him to Shiva-it. Vaihedi is certainly pretty, but one gets the feeling few women ever have voiced anything but praise for Badri. His own mother, after all, is practically a mute. Did she speak in the film? I don’t think so. They dig one another, which manifests itself in the usual grand Bollywood number, which is why one goes to these things in the first place, of course.
Hmmm, bad timesfor a show-stopping Bollywood number:
- Stood up at the altar
- Funeral
- Circumcision
- Open-heart surgery
- Public execution
- That scene in Slumdog Millionaire where the kid has to exit the outhouse
Most other situations seem perfectly acceptable.
After that, Vaihedi gives him the cold shoulder, and Badri won’t leave it alone, so he and his toadie Somdev (Sahil Vaid)
follow Vaihedi, essentially until she agrees to marry him. There’s some dowry confusion in there, but boundary failure is the basic gist of it … all so she can leave him at the altar. I’d blame Vaihedi –and she deserves her fair share – but this was the only time Badri seemed open to understanding the word “no.”
The above all describes a pretty bad film; I did enjoy the few music numbers and the last twenty minutes; Badrinath Ki Dulhania goes in a direction not entirely unexpected, but not entirely compromising, either. Maybe in the remake, everybody can line-dance during a “stood-up at the altar” scene.
Badri and his open heart spilt
Until his bride was filled with guilt
A reception of pleasure
All his to treasure
A dowry comprised entirely of “jilt”
Not Rated, 139 Minutes
D: Shashank Khaitan
W: Shashank Khaitan
Genre: Eventual romance
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Eventual romantics
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Realists
