This is how you make a masala Bollywood film with rich content in it. Badrinath Ki Dulhania is a slap on the faces of those who think Hindi cinema is just good to make brainless entertainers. The film has everything from good performances, peppy songs, nice intention and a lovable story. Director and writer Shashank Khaitan has finally done magic with his craft and delivered something which is better than Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and also paints relevance on screen.
The film is set in two small cities of India, Jhansi and Kota, from where it flies to Singapore. This small town background has done a good favour to the story and also to the actors who seemed to have just taken the UP accent right. Alia Bhatt, who plays the character of Vaidehi in the film is a girl with big ambitions and Varun Dhawan who is Badri in the film, is a man who is a victim of our patriarchal society. And the kind of victim who doesn’t even realise that he is one of those male chauvinists until he falls in love with Vaidehi and understands what respecting a woman means. Badrinath Ki Dulhania talks about dowry system and gender discrimination but its amalgamation in a beautiful love story doesn’t let it emerge as a preachy film.
Varun Dhawan
The actor is more popularly known as somebody who is a perfect combination of Salman Khan and Govinda in Bollywood. He knows his league. He knows where he fits the best in. And he also knows how his audience wants to see him as. The confidence with which he plays the character of Badri is impressive. The film has moments where he had to just emote, without dialogues. And Varun excelled in those. Badrinath Bansal never lets go of the innocent charm of a Jhansi boy who doesn’t know English but knows how to not force love on a woman. He wears colourful clothes, sets the stage on fire with his desi dancing and also speaks his heart, whether it’s about telling Vaidehi that he wants to marry her or telling his father that his ideas are obsolete. In his Badri, Varun brings a character which is very much rooted in his culture and is also trapped in the sick social norms but is also ready evolved with new ideologies.
Alia Bhatt
Alia Bhatt (Courtesy: Twitter/@nawabjha )
This girl is getting more fabulous with each film. Who will not want to fall in love with her character in the film! A confident, smart, pretty, quirky young girl who though belongs to a small town but has dreams of flying (literally). Alia Bhatt plays the character of Vaidehi with a remarkably unmissable penchant. She looks beautiful in every frame. Her hold on that UP accent seems so good that even you try to speak in the language as you leave the theatre. She is fantastic when she is the glamorous woman dancing at a pub in Singapore, and she is fantastic again when she is a woman fighting sexist society she lives in.
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Sahil Vaid
Sahil Vaid in Badrinath Ki Dulhania
Apart from bringing in light a nice love story, what Badrinath Ki Dulhania also gives to the industry is an actor with great potential — Sahil Vaid. First, he played the character of Poplu in Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and now he plays the character of Somdev. The actor makes for one complete fun watch in the film. In fact, Badri’s chemistry with Somdev intrigues you more than his chemistry with Vaidehi. To the credit of the makers, it’s good to see how they didn’t shy away from giving enough screen space to the character of hero ka dost. And Sahil, for his credit justified this character fully. Badrinath Ki Dulhania is a rom-com and the ‘com’ part comes majorly from the performance of Sahil Vaid.
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