Sonam-Kareena’s ‘Veere Di Wedding’ Is Like A Fashion Magazine That Has Developed A Conscience

They are modern women dealing with modern-women problems like ghar-se-bhaag-ke shaadi, bade-papa-ka-gussa and DIE-VORCE! And when the going gets really tough, they lovingly push packets of Bikaji Bhujia towards each other.

By: Premankur Biswas |
June 2, 2018 9:12 am

In the ways-you-can’t-believe unwatchable Veere Di Wedding, Sonam K Ahuja plays a lawyer. We know that because she occasionally wears deconstructed power suits, sits in front of a Macbook while pretending to sip coffee out of a Muji mug (no one likes lipstick smudges y’all) and at one very odd moment of the film, blares at a Mehboob Studio extra trying his best to be a Haryanvi cop, “AAP MUJHAI LAW MAT SIKHAIYEAH!” (Don’t teach me law).

In gag-a-minute Veere Di Wedding, Kareena Kapoor plays a “real” girl struggling with “real” problems. Like her father and uncle fighting over a million-dollar kothi, her prospective mother-in-law surreptitiously changing her 22 karat walla engagement ring with a hazaar karat one and her friends not accompanying her to pre-wedding Karol Bagh shopping expeditions. And she does all this while rocking the face-scrubbed-clean look.

In whatchamacallit Veere Di Wedding, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania try their best to breathe some credibility to their bespoke characters. They spout some expletives, try to look genuinely interested when Sonam and Kareena give them stale relationship advice (“I told you not to marry that guy!”) and chug alcohol out of bejeweled hip flasks. They know they will never get to do this onscreen again. Not until Ms K Ahuja decides to make a sequel.

Shashank Ghosh’s Veere Di Wedding is like a fashion magazine that has recently received a memo from the marketing team that says ‘make it more, woh-kya-kehte-hain, feminist’. Which is a great thing and we recognise that. But do we really need Sonam Kapoor spitting “you mother-lover!” to a guy who didn’t want to kiss her on their first date?

From the very first matte-finished frame, we are told that this film is about women throwing caution to the wind, and looking fabulous doing it. Kalindi (the only thing interesting about Kareena in this film is her name) shares zero chemistry with her boyfriend of many years Rishabh (Sumeet Vyas), and when he proposes, she is taken aback, because, you know, girls have right to be not interested in marriage too, okay?

Yet, she says yes and an ogre of a Delhi wedding is set into motion. Meanwhile, Vyas, poor thing, has the impossible task of masking his dude-I-have-arrived- and-I-am-romancing-Kareena-onscreen expression. He almost pulls it off. Kareena, on the other hand, has an even more herculean task- of looking interested in anything at all. She fails. But hey, this is our good ole Bebo, you won’t hold an insincere performance against her, will you?

At least she has a cool name. Kalindi’s gang, however,is saddled with progressively lesser-interesting names (ranking in terms of star power), Avni (Sonam), Shikha (Swara) and Meera (Shikha).

They are modern women dealing with modern-women problems like ghar-se-bhaag-ke shaadi, bade-papa-ka-gussa and DIE-VORCE! And when the going gets really tough, they lovingly push packets of Bikaji Bhujia towards each other.

As the film progresses, we are regaled with sequences that has director Shahshank Ghosh curling up to you, expecting to be petted for his ‘feminist’ take on things.

Women cursing. Check.

Woman pleasuring herself. Check.

Woman drinking unabashedly. Check.

Woman asserting herself sexually. Check.

Woman walking out of a marriage because she was not sure of it. Check.

Ghosh takes every cliche in the book and dabs and puffs it up to look pretty. In Ghosh’s world, every problem is just concealer deep. Maa needs to be told that daughter doesn’t need an arranged marriage, Papa needs to be told that daughter also needs some pyar and boyfriend needs to be told – ‘hey, keep your crazy family off me!’

However, for a film that pretends to be India’s first female-bonding film, Veere Di Wedding fails the Bechdel quite glaringly. All the Veeres are so preoccupied with the men in their lives that we don’t know who they really are underneath all those Sephora products.