It is a film, in short, with daddy issues. And while the idea of toppling the patriarchy is admirable, Badrinath Ki Dulhania aims these guns too literally: every single father in this film is a gruff monolith incapable of conversation, and must thus be eventually defied. The film's first half might be set in small towns, but there is no earthiness or texture. The hiccups arise from the storytelling, and the detailing. Conceptually, this film says a lot, and even slips in a line about a man being a woman's groom rather than her being his bride - potently doing more with a single line of dialogue than Ki & Ka managed to do with an entire film. Other films echoed but tweaked include Shuddh Desi Romance and Band Bajaa Baaraat. Khaitan constantly promises the familiar and delivers something else. 'Our film has nothing to do with stalking'.In Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya, Khaitan had presented Bhatt with the supremely confident Shah Rukh Khan moment in the climax, outstretched arms and all, and once again he seems committed to giving the woman agency.Īll the storytelling tropes seem familiar in Badrinath Ki Dulhania but Khaitan consistently veers away from the expected: this is a film where the boy is a virgin and the girl has a past, a film where she is the ambitious one and he does little, a film where, in a casual but striking reversal of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, for instance, the two lovers discuss how he must go back home and marry someone he's never even met. This overfamiliarity, is, I suspect, director Shashank Khaitan's way to lull the audience before pouring on the subversion. The hero's elder brother - transparently modelled on the characters Mohnish Behl played in the Sooraj Barjatya films - is named Alok Nath. It's as if the film is selling conditioner. 'I want to do comedy, I am waiting for somebody to offer me one'.There is, in fact, a significant Hum Aapke Hain Koun.! hangover to the opening stretches of the film, not least because everyone wears shiny new clothes in every single shot, and Bhatt is never photographed without wind in her face, flatteringly caressing her curls. It is like watching a young Salman Khan be charmed by a young Madhuri Dixit, but this boy acts better and the girl is winsome. 'Vaidehi Trivedi,' he says, over and over, mesmerised even by the syllables of her name, minutes after she tells him to make sure he eats the halwa. Limits are hard for garrulous young Badrinath, and when he sees Alia Bhatt at a wedding, he falls hard. Too eager to flash his giddiness to the world, he's constantly being reined in by the photographer. It starts with Varun Dhawan trying to grin. This makes it an appropriate backdrop for Shashank Khaitan's breezy but sincere Badrinath Ki Dulhania, a film that has monumental ambition yet relies, modestly, on make-believe.
A conveniently miniaturised collection of the seven wonders are arranged next to the Kishore Sagar lake, a world of selfie-friendly replicas for newlywed couples to exploit. The film also stars Alia Bhatt and is slated to release on March 10.A pyramid, a Taj Mahal, a Leaning Tower. 'Badrinath Ki Dulhania' marks the second instalment of a love franchise that began with the romantic comedy 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' (2014), which was also directed by Khaitan and produced by Karan Johar. Every creative person does get inspired and you have to choose the right people to be inspired," he added.
"All these heroes do inspire me to be a hero on screen and somewhere in my performance, they do play a part. I've gone to the theatre to see Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan dance and I screamed." "It will be unfair to say that I've seen Arnold Schwarzenegger to become an actor in Hindi cinema. He just does it straight away if he thinks of doing something," he added.Ĭomparing his appearance in the film with actor Govinda, the 'Badlapur' star said: "I am a very big fan of Chichi bhaiyya (Govinda) or the three Khans (Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman) or Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan also, because they are my inspirations of what I am doing today. "Today, we all Google when we do something.
I was like that probably when I was in college," Varun said at the film's trailer launch. He does something, then he thinks about the repercussions. That's how Shashank Khaitan has written the character. "Badrinath doesn't have a brain, but he has a heart. Varun Dhawan says that at one point of time, he was like his character Badrinath from the forthcoming film 'Badrinath Ki Dulhania'.