Dil Dhadakne Do: My Review

Director: Zoya Akhtar

Runtime: 170 Minutes (Really Long!!)

Great ensemble of star cast in Anil Kapoor, Shefali shah, Priyanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh. Did I miss anyone? Oh yes, Rahul Bose. Someone else? Ohh yea, Director Zoya Akhtar’s brother Farhan Akhtar, who plays a cameo. (Yes, that was the one reason I went for the movie!!).

Zoya’s two previous movies, the perfectly written and charming Luck by Chance and the more famous Zindagi na milegi Dobara. Sadly, she’s more known for the latter. While LBC, was an insight into Bollywood through an outsiders’ perspective and how he gets lost in that. ZNMD was about three friends on a journey looking at their own existing lives through borrowed glasses.

In this new movie, Dil dhadakne do, Zoya attempts to capture the high-society Delhi family of Mehras. But this time, she just takes us directly into their world. A world of phony unapologetic characters. She definitely tries to bring the outside perspective in the form of a dog, brilliantly voiced over by Aamir Khan, something which appears to be a feather borrowed from Raju Hirani’s book.

Coming back to the plot, A family where the son is given preference even though the daughter seems to be the qualified one. A family where the women feel they are at the mercy of their husbands. A family where marriage decisions are subject to business deals. And a lot more clichés which one might have heard of, or seen in movies from time to time. This Mehra family is a mix of all those into one.

Anil kapoor, who tries to look really old as part of the role, plays the part to perfection. Ranvir Singh is brilliant in his act, playing the role of the Anil’s son. But apart from them, there are no notable performances. Anil Kapoor and Ranvir Singh seems to have the meatiest roles. While others have been tried to fit into allotted roles. Farhan Akhtar, is not even there!!! And the kind of heavy-duty dialogues being given to his character is just pointless!! Don’t get me wrong, everyone acts well. You’ll end up laughing on a lot of occasions. But, oh yes there’s that but, you’ll feel out-of-place to relate to any of it. The story is so-much centered on the high-society social drama that even with so many important issues raised, you’ll still come out with a confused expression.

ZNMD, made us go wow over Spain. It made us be part of their travel journey. But with D3, it is so focused about the issues plaguing the Mehra Family, when even though it has a travel-backdrop, doesn’t do any justice to Istanbul or any other place the cruise takes the story forward. It sure has its moments which make you laugh and appreciate the issues being raised about women-empowerment, but they are very disconnected in the long stretch of the film.

It is not a bad movie but isn’t very entertaining too, just a one-time watch to have a few momentary laughs. I’m going with 2/5 for Zoya Akhtar’s cruise which didn’t quite reached its destination as I would have liked it to.