Twenty years after making Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge, Karan Johar pays a tribute to himselfby producing Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. Tohis credit, this is kinda based on the Shahrukh-Kajol starrer but Humpty (VarunDhawan) and Kavya (Alia Bhat) are not Raj (Shahrukh) and Simran (Kajol). Forstarters, Kavya has a mind of her own (in Dilwale…the father is so repressive that when the daughter, Simran wants to go on a holiday with her friends, sheasks him for one month out of her own life -- it is actually a dialogue in themovie).
Kavya is on the verge of getting married and is chasing adesigner lehenga that has to be twicethe price of her friend’s designer wedding lehenga.
Humpty (aka Rakesh) is literally appearing for his final graduation exams –there is at least one paper that he turns in totally blank, so appearance in theexamination hall is all that he is doing.
He is a Delhi boy and she is an Ambala girl in Delhi on her lehenga hunt. The twain meet. He woosher by sorting out her problems and her friend’s problems. She falls for him. Theyspend a night together (this is a fairly recent trend in Bollywood – pre-maritalsex without guilt) and then she goes back. He follows her, declaims his lovefor her to her family, gets beaten up, returns and gets a chance to show he ismore eligible than the guy her father has “arranged” her match with.
One of the nicest things in the movies is that Humpty canfind no fault with Kavya’s betrothed – in fact he admits that the guy is betterthan him (Humpty) in all ways.
Dealing with his attack of insecurity Kavyaassures him that she loves him. Humpty is not so easily consoled and rattles alist of things that the other guy can do but he (Humpty) can’t. Kavya offers noexplanations or reason for an emotion that cannot be rationalised orlogicalised – she simply reiterates that she loves him (Humpty).
There is absolutely nothing unpredictable about the moviebut the lead pair is just so winsome. It is a movie that demands nothing from theviewer (not even suspension of disbelief). The love story doesn’t draw you inlike Dilwale...but it is a watchableFilm that lies somewhere between waste-of-time and ho-hum-okay.
