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Shaadi Ke side Effects(Hindi) Rating: * * * Laugh friendly for sure but nothing path-breaking. At the core are some done to death ,still laugh-worthy internet jokes about marriage and convincing performances by Vidya and Farhan.
Hindi Film Review
Johnson Thomas
Film Review: Shaadi ke Side Effects: Typically filmy, humorous but absurd take on marriage
Cast: Vidya Balan, Farhan Akhtar, Ram Kapoor and Vir Das
Director: Saket Chaudhary
Rating: * * *
It’s not a new take in any manner. We’ve seen so many Hollywood movies going through similar motions in order to spice-up a marriage and the jokes are all the kind that could well be downloaded from the Internet. So Ekta kapoor, Pritish Nandy and Saket Chaudhary’s brand extension to Pritish Nandy communications’ surprise hit, ‘Pyar ke Side Effects’ is not exactly a novel experience even though it’s a fairly humorous one!
The basic inspiration stems from the 1988 John Hughes comedy, ‘She is having a baby,’ but while Saket’s film goes much beyond the birth of a child, the original ends at that event. But Saket’s script for the film dioesn’t delve too deep into the psyche of a married couple. It prefers to draw out caricatures created from a series of dotted events in the life of a married man, albeit with convenient homilies on gender politics within the confines of a marriage. It’s wafer-thin enticement at best.
The star-cast is different- In fact, a much more accomplished one. Vidya Balan and Farhan Akhtar as Trisha and Sid, make for a believable couple striving to make their marriage work. And it’s all credit to their individual talents. The segmented script which goes back and forth in time in the first fifteen odd minutes, settles down into a steady enough rhythm. It almost appears as if you have a runaway laugh-riot on your hands- but pre-meditated pulls and breaks on the narrative foil the fun element, transforming the light-hearted entreaty into a laborious and tedium inducing one.
Sid(Farhan) and Trisha(Vidya Balan) behave like new-found lovers who set-off sparks after a rendezvous in a bar. Both are married and talk about their respective spouses as the ones who are ruining their happiness. A few scenes later, prompted by a Hotel manager who takes them to task for their exhibitionism, the two reveal that they are indeed married to each other and engage in such lurid fantasies in order to spice-up their marriage. Then comes the fly in the ointment- a child. Trisha is pregnant and Sid , the struggling musician is not too happy at the prospect of an added responsibility. Especially since Trisha is the family bread-earner. They convince themselves to go ahead with the birth and once the child comes into their lives, their love appears to have gone out of the window. Trisha is busy doing the right thing by her baby while Sid finds himself on the outside , looking in!
The premise is quite believable but the treatment , set-up and exposition is not. Especially since we don’t exactly find out how the struggling musician earns money enough to spend for an expensive bike, fortnightly stays in a five-star or a PG- leave alone a well-dressed cultured ayah(a.k.a Bai played by Ila Arun-one who charges Rs.15,000, no less per month). Ram Kapoor assays the role of a two-faced informal marriage guru, Vir Das –a whacky, struggling model , Rati Agnihotri –Trisha’s always critical (of Sid) mother and Purab Kohli, the neighbor who looks more and more like the ideal husband and father for Sid’s family.
The script has other problems too. The husband-wife politicking looks overly exaggerated and the characters are never completely believable because they yo-yo from one extreme to another. Especially that of the wife, who’d rather not believe ill of her husband who is living-up to all the signs of someone having an affair on the side. In fact the entire run of play is slanted towards making the women look and sound stupid and clueless. After all it’s Sid’s point of view. The narration is by Sid of course. A Sid who strives to garner sympathy for all husbands with his woe-begone tale. One who makes his three year old daughter take a guided horse-ride on a busy main street and then forgets all about her(to the extent of even leaving her behind) while he gets caught-up in a soccer match on TV at a local café. He also gets his beer guzzling noisy friends home to watch a soccer match while his wife and kid are resting in the other room.
When the truth comes out and that too towards the end, the wife is given the token right to put her hubby through the wringer before the inevitable happens.
