Continuing the trend of ‘Small-Town Romantic Dramas’ such as the recent SHUBH MANGAL SAAVDHAN, BADRINATH KI DULHANIYA, BAREILLY KI BARFI, BEHEN HOGI TERI and more, SHAADI MEIN ZAROOR AANA once again has a lot of clichéd stuff in its content, but along with a difference, which thankfully gives you something fresh to enjoy within the already known format directed by the debutant Ratnaa Sinha.
For instance, here we yet again have the focus on the ugly dowry issue, discrimination between male-female kids in the families, their higher education priorities and a runaway bride too as recently seen in a few of the similar genre films. But it all gets portrayed in a much mature and effective manner which largely works in its first half, and then the second has a novel revenge angle too that keeps the interest alive along a major twist in the script.
However, it all goes back to a completely uninteresting 15 minutes of a silly re-union in the end, that doesn’t work at all and pulls the films down to the level of a just decent entertainer. In short where SMZA thoughtfully focuses on the girls before the intermission, its gets much louder cheers from the boys in its second hour and then forces all to go silent watching the unexpectedly poor climax that wasn’t required at all.
Rajkummar Rao is once again impressive enacting the two different personas and Kriti really supports him well especially in the latter part of the film being at the receiving end. Plus SMZA gets a big boost from its well-written supporting characters featuring all reputed names as Govind Namdeo, KK Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Vipin Sharma, Navni Parihar and more.
Scoring fine in its technical department, the romantic drama as usual doesn’t have any great melodious songs with only “Mera Inteqaam Dekhegi” working as per the situation and a few deliberately inserted ones asking for a better edit.
In all, though SHAADI MEIN ZAROOR AANA turns out to be a winner with a novel twist in its otherwise usual love story, the film could have been much more as a rare, courageous project with a different ‘unhappy’ climax. Anyway in the current format, it still deserves to be seen as a more than decent, message oriented entertainer with all commendable performances.
Rating : 3 / 5 (It could have got a lot more with a different culmination)
(Note: The article was also published on UC-News Mobile App in November 2017)
(Beyond The Review)
Moving ahead than the review, I would like to call SHAADI MEIN ZAROOR AANA a film that could have been a new trendsetter with an ‘unhappy ending’ boldly justifying its characters and their life-story instead of playing it safe going the obvious way.
(Spoilers Ahead)
In clear words, the first time director Ratnaa Sinha actually ruins an otherwise good film avoiding a more realistic, unusual climax due to her fear of failure. As a result, every important social message in the film and its superfine performances are not able to make the desired impact, ending on a pretty casual and predictable note, becoming just another routine Bollywood wedding-drama with a twist.
Justifying its interesting plot, it would have been a killer film if the director had opted for a no-reunion in the end, focusing on Rajkummar Rao moving ahead in his life, saving-forgiving and forgetting Kriti for what she had done with him and his family a few years back. With that kind of intense climax SMZA would have defeated every similar Hindi film in the genre till date resulting in a much powerful and realistic film unarguably.
Sadly in the present version, it just remains a fine one time watch giving you a fairly good time as a weekend family entertainer.
Cheers!
