Shuddh Desi Romance

They say experience teaches a man better than anything or anyone else.  Not that you need to commit your own mistakes to learn from – you can as well learn from other people’s mistakes.  I have no clue to where Maneesh Sharma got his sum total of learning.  Whether it was from his solid effort with Band Baaja Baraat or his just about par effort of Ishaqzaade.  Either ways, he seems to have learnt.  And learnt well.

Shuddh Desi Romance breaks through the glut of crappy movies which have been made either under the garb of biopics or political thrillers.  Here is a movie that is Indian at heart but made with more attention to detail than most movies over the past couple of months.  Maneesh Sharma continues with his formula of fresh faces and a fresher story to ensure that he gives you a very nice RomCom.

The setting moves from the affection that we have for Delhi to an little more rustic Jaipur where one Raghuram Seetaram (Sushant Singh Rajput) is, much against his wishes, about to get married to Tara (Vaani Kapoor).  Raghu usually makes a living by being a “Bhade ka Baraati” (crudely translated as a man on rent for the wedding procession).  But all that experience comes to naught when you are the one to be slaughtered.

But in walks, Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) and Raghu manages to make out with her en route to his own wedding. The result? He leaves an exceptionally gorgeous bride to be at the altar and runs off.  Not to be with Gayatri.  But because he is petrified.  The actual love story begins a couple of weeks down the road with Gayatri itself but under more realistic circumstances.

I will start with what Maneesh Sharma gets wrong but thats only because there are several good things which i will touch upon later.  The story is far too predictable.  He also gets some other things wrong like getting the typical song and dance into a movie that was good enough without it - especially when the song and dance was just about average.  Funnily, the hero’s costumes are over the top.  

Of course our two lovers have just not learnt to kiss - I cannot say no chemistry but they cannot kiss.  Parineeti does not smoke off screen and it shows - if she does then i am not sure why it seemed like a pretense. And Bollywood needs a crash course in editing – badly at that.  Sharma could have built the love story a bit more patiently and cut a few other unnecessary pieces.

Full points, however, to Maneesh Sharma on a lot of other things. He gets the casting bang on even with a newbie like Vaani Kapoor who is not just gorgeous but supremely confident in front of the camera. Parineeti and Sushant are slowly but surely stamping their authority onto Bollywood.  Here are two people who can really act. I just love Parineeti’s confidence and effortless acting – Anushka Sharma better watch out.

For once, we find a director who has paid careful attention to the costumes so much that even in dream sequences they are realistic and not with the heroine wearing micro-minis in a Jaipur Bazaar.  He could have toned down the make up for sure but that may have made it a little too real J.  The dialogues and one-liners are slick, sharp and hurt where they are supposed to.

Best of all, just 4 simple characters.  No confusion for the audience. Overall, a really good effort from Maneesh Sharma and the cast.  One that prompts to to give a 7 on 10 for a movie that could have gone a notch higher but  as I said – if it had, it may not have been Bollywood.  One needs so much colour and fan fare in a movie that comes from this part of the world.  Watch it for sure.

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Hle83Plpo