Miscellaneous
Big, fat, moronic wedding
I can’t help but wonder if director Vikas Bahl might’ve been holding some sort of compromising information over actors Shahid Kapoor and Alia BhattPreena Shrestha
I can’t help but wonder if director Vikas Bahl might’ve been holding some sort of compromising information over actors Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in order to get them to do what they do in the new Shaandaar. It’s certainly the only explanation for why two of Bollywood’s most promising young stars—or indeed any of the others in the cast—would even consider taking on a script this bad; loud, bloated and just straight up incoherent for the most part, it’s sort of like that drunken aunty you try to avoid at parties lest she drag you onto the dance floor, shimmying around manically trying to convince you, and herself, that this is ‘fun’. Shaandaar is a strange beast altogether, and describing it is difficult—I mean, it’s awful, really awful, no question about that, but it’s also hard to pinpoint exactly what category of awful to slot it under because the film is just so inconsistent in mood, style and well, on most other counts. One therefore struggles to understand why Bahl, who directed last year’s sleeper hit Queen (I know!), would choose to go in this direction: it’s a misfire through and through.
Alia (Bhatt), a little orphan girl, is brought home one day under mysterious circumstances by the kindly Bipin (Pankaj Kapur), much to the chagrin of his wife (Niki Aneja) and his mother (Sushma Seth), the iron-fisted head of the family business—daughter Isha (debutante Sanah Kapoor, Kapur’s real-life daughter) is the only one who embraces the new addition to the clan. The passing of the years doesn’t do much to affect this dynamic; while Bipin and his girls grow ever closer, the other two only grudgingly tolerate Alia’s presence, tossing the occasional barb her way whenever they get the chance. Not that she’s pining for their approval either: Alia is whip-smart and independent, and though suffering a pesky little insomnia problem (apparently she hasn’t slept a day in her life), enough of a glass-half-full sort of girl to see the condition as offering her more time to read and play and basically indulge her curiosities about the world.
It’s a massive treat for her, then, when she accompanies the family to a sprawling country estate in the UK, where Isha will be getting married to the brother of well-to-do Sindhi tycoon Harry Fundwani (Sanjay Kapoor)—a convenient coalescing of personal and business interests. And it is in these picturesque surroundings that Alia meets pretty-boy Jagjinder Joginder or JJ (Shahid Kapoor), the wedding organiser who is also, turns out, an insomniac. They hit it off from the get-go and are soon traipsing across the countryside, taking moonlit swims together and bonding over shared sleep troubles, the romance in full swing despite Bipin’s attempts to diffuse it. But this being a wedding, there’s plenty to divert his attention, such as the fact that the eight-and-a-half-pack boasting groom-to-be (Vikas Verma) is revealing himself to be something of an ass; Mummyji’s tyranny is getting harder to bear; and there are hints that the merger between the Aroras and Fundwanis might not prove quite as mutually-beneficial as assumed.
Among Shaandhaar’s worst offences is the talent that it gleefully squanders. It’s hard to fathom how someone like Kapur Senior must’ve kept from screaming through something as degrading as this. But he at least brings some gravity to his role, and is the very picture of restraint compared to the middle Kapoor aka Sanjay, who demonstrates such forced, maddening enthusiasm that you’ll want to shoot him with that golden gun he brandishes all the time. Same goes for Seth’s exaggerated meanie stint, a retread for the actress if there ever was one. As for Kapoor Junior’s JJ, it’s as unimaginative a character as can be, that smug, annoyingly smooth, always-ready-with-a-quip white knight that Shah Rukh Khan could’ve played with his eyes closed. His scenes with Bhatt—who just looks plain bored—lack any sense of spontaneity, their chemistry unconvincing and insipid. Second-tier performances are even more forgettable.
I should’ve mentioned earlier that there are a few animated sequences interspersing the film, used most markedly in flashbacks, as well as random bits of CGI scattered throughout. This, along with Naseeruddin Shah’s voiceover, is in keeping with the sort of whimsical Disney-fairytale vibe that Shaandaar appears to be trying to emulate. It’s all certainly vibrant and colourful to look at, and while there’s nothing wrong with a bit of magic realism—god knows we’re talking about a film industry long-invested in fairly surreal song-and-dance sequences—the particular combination of live-action and animation is clumsily executed here. It is especially evident in more somber scenes, where the gimmick detracts from the desired emotional impact.
That inability to commit to a specific tone makes for a muddled, disjointed watch. On one hand, Shaandaar is trying to appeal to the child in you through cutesy cartoons; on the other, it also seems to be attempting a cheeky, self-aware dig at the elaborate wedding film tradition; on yet another hand, it phones in commentary about body image culminating in some sort of vague feminist statement; before reverting right back to an old-fashioned romance between a pretty damsel in somewhat distress and her well-coiffed savior. The confusion is furthered by the setting; European mansions mix strangely with Punjabi accents, resulting in the sort of glittery make-believe world of outlandishly rich Indians—replete with pujas and balls alike, with arranged marriages and talk of ‘sanskaar’ right alongside the antics of ‘modern’ women who parrot cyber-slang—that Karan Johar is known for (it will therefore not surprise you to find out this is a Dharma co-production and Mr Johar has a particularly cringeworthy cameo). It all comes down to a script that is, despite deriving from the same team behind Queen, completely devoid of coherence, interest or any semblance of logic: It’s basically a patchwork of one too many boisterous dance numbers, poor jokes largely built around ethnic stereotypes, characters that are impossible to identify with or care about, and some bits that just don’t make any sense (re: the skydiving thing? And the underwear under the cloche, what was that?).
Ensemble comedies in Bollywood have mostly been hit-and-miss affairs—more misses than hits, really—lately synonymous with clamorous cameo-laden vehicles advancing plots that are mediocre at best, crass humour and catchy ‘item’ numbers, but Shaandaar is disappointing even by those pretty low standards. This is because underneath the noise and flash and stylistic turns and attempts at ironic distance lies an empty core; there is no sincerity or joy in the madness here—it is cold, calculated froth. Just sit this one out.