Tag Archives: Kartik Aaryan

Movie Review: Satyaprem Ki Katha (2023)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Satyaprem Ki Katha aspires to be a social issue picture that feels less heavy-handed than other Hindi films about important topics sometimes do. It almost meets its goals, but it trips just before crossing the finish line.

One of Satyaprem Ki Katha‘s selling points is that its characters are nuanced and have room to grow. Kartik Aaryan plays Satyaprem, whom everyone calls Sattu. He’s a nice but mediocre guy who’s been left behind as his peers advanced in their careers and romantic relationships. He tends the house with his dad/best friend Narayan (Gajraj Rao) while his mom Diwali (Supriya Pathak) and sister Sejal (Shikha Talsania) earn money teaching dance and exercise classes.

Sattu pines for the beautiful woman he saw dancing at last year’s holiday function: Katha (Kiara Advani), daughter of wealthy shop owner Harikishen Kapadia (Siddharth Randeria). When Sattu doesn’t see Katha at this year’s function, her father tells him that she felt unwell and stayed home. Sattu sneaks into the Kapadia mansion to confess his feelings, arriving just in time to stop Katha’s suicide attempt from succeeding.

Worried that Katha’s recent breakup with her rich boyfriend Tapan (Arjun Aneja) and her newly revealed mental health problems will tarnish Katha’s reputation among the upper crust, Harikishen marries her off to the first suitable groom he finds: Sattu. Katha agrees to the marriage, but only because her dad threatens to kill himself if she doesn’t. The look of heartbreak and betrayal on Katha’s face as she leaves home after the wedding is devastating.

Understandably, the marriage starts off rocky. The fact that Katha won’t let Sattu sleep in the same room as her becomes hot neighborhood gossip. As unsympathetic as Katha’s father is to his daughter, he kindly explains to Sattu that something awful must have happened for Katha to have attempted suicide. Sattu takes his time earning Katha’s trust, helping her to open up and reveal the trauma she’s been hiding.

Harikishen is a good example of what Satyaprem Ki Katha — directed by Sameer Vidwans and written by Karan Shrikant Sharma — does well in terms of character creation. All of the characters are multidimensional, sometimes holding contradictory views or changing their stance depending on the circumstances. Narayan is the same way, counseling Sattu on patience and understanding, but only until the family is threatened by scandal.

Such complexity makes the characters feel believable and gives the actors a chance to demonstrate their range. Advani nails her part, but Aaryan understands what’s being asked of him, too, saving his smarmy grins for dream-sequence dance numbers. Pathak and Rao are also quite good as Sattu’s concerned parents.

Speaking of dance numbers, the inclusion of several song sequences lightens a film that deals with heavy subjects, but without being jarring or tonally inconsistent.

For all the good work Vidwans and Sharma do creating characters who address complicated issues from multiple angles, the moral center of the film falls apart as the story draws to a close. What had been a good example of how to exercise patience with victims and take their accounts seriously becomes yet another film where a victimized woman is sidelined and the male hero is centered. By the end, it’s Sattu who decides the proper way for Katha to heal, and he defines what constitutes justice.

I’m not willing to write Satyaprem Ki Katha off entirely just because it doesn’t stick the landing. There’s some value to be found in dissecting the ways the movie gets things wrong at the end, as well as what it gets right early on. Still, it’s a bummer to see it come so close only to fall apart.

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Movie Review: Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

I’m skeptical about any Luv Ranjan project. The filmmaker owes his career to the unfortunate box office success of sexist comedies like 2015’s deplorable Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar.

Ranjan’s objective with Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar (TJMM, henceforth) is simple: show sexy people having a good time in exotic locations accompanied by a catchy soundtrack with some big dance numbers. To that end, it’s mission accomplished.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Mickey Arora, son of a wealthy, tight-knit family. In addition to helping run one of the family’s businesses — how his periodic strolling through an auto showroom helps is anyone’s guess — Mickey runs a secret side operation orchestrating breakups. He and his buddy Manu (Anubhav Singh Bassi) stage elaborate schemes on behalf of lovers who want to ditch their partners with minimal hard feelings or reputational damage.

While accompanying Manu on a trip to Spain to celebrate his engagement to Kinchi (Monica Chaudhary), Mickey falls for Kinchi’s gorgeous best friend Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor). Despite her reservations about dating a guy who’s never had to work for a boss who isn’t also his dad, Tinni and Mickey grow closer while frolicking in swimwear and cavorting about town. Both Kapoors look incredibly fit in this film, and their dance numbers are a lot of fun.

Mickey and Tinni return to Delhi and make things official, first by introducing Tinni to Mickey’s family. The Arora’s have no chill and quickly monopolize all of the couple’s time. This isn’t a problem for Mickey, but it is for Tinni. She places a call to the breakup expert — who uses a modulator to disguise his voice — and asks for help ending her relationship with Mickey.

Only in the movies would Mickey not immediately recognize his own girlfriend’s voice. More movie cliches follow once Mickey figures things out, including his professional instructions for Tinni to make Mickey jealous with a fake ex-boyfriend and to try to make Mickey cheat with her fake beautiful friend. (The fake ex and the fake friend are played by Kartik Aaryan and Nushrratt Bharuccha, respectively, who both starred in Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2).

Much of the conflict in TJMM could have been avoided had the characters simply talked to one another, but at least they are motivated by doing what they believe the other one wants. That fits with Mickey’s business ethos of trying to minimize the emotional fallout from breakups, but the couple is slow to realize that they are really only punishing themselves by not addressing their issues directly. The film is thoughtful about the way the borders of a romantic relationship extend out to encompass the families of the two people involved.

That said, TJMM is inherently conservative and too centered on Mickey. We see details of Tinni’s life only as they relate to Mickey. His family gets ample screentime, but we only get brief glimpses of Tinni’s family. While the two male friends regularly talk about their romantic relationships with one another, Tinni and Kinchi never do.

In the course of running his breakup business, Mickey spouts off a bunch of simplistic maxims about the behavior patterns of men and women that sound old-fashioned and a bit sexist. There’s also a moment where Mickey vows to get revenge on Tinni for lying to him — an unfortunate callback to the cruel revenge plots that make up the second half of Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2.

Yet despite it faults, TJMM mostly has its heart in the right place. The characters really do try to do right by one another, even when their efforts are misguided. And the film hits all the right notes for the kind of upbeat, escapist fantasy it aspires to be.

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Movie Review: Luka Chuppi (2019)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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“I go to the gym. I am lean.
You speak to me like a machine.
You say that you watch Scooby-Dooby Doo.
Let it be, Don’t have to say I love you.”
— “Coca Cola Tu”, lyrics by Tony Kakkar and Mellow D or a random word generator

The romantic comedy Luka Chuppi (“Hide and Seek“) tries to appeal to a youthful demographic, but its story is stale.

Small town reporter Guddu (Kartik Aaryan) falls in love at first sight with Rashmi (Kriti Sanon), a new intern at Guddu’s cable station. Rashmi wants to wait on marriage until she’s established her own journalism career in Delhi, but she’s willing to try out a live-in relationship with Guddu first. Traditional Guddu balks at the idea, not least of all because a local conservative Hindu political party — led by Rashmi’s father, Vishnu (Vinay Pathak) — is waging a crusade against couples dating or living together before marriage.

A reporting assignment in another town gives Rashmi and Guddu the chance to cohabitate in secret, at the encouragement of the station’s cameraman, Abbas (Aparshakti Khurana, who was great in Stree). When their new neighbors get suspicious, the couple pretends that they are already married — a lie that spirals out of control once their families get wind of it.

Luka Chuppi is written in the chauvinistic tradition that insists on having a male “main” character, rather than true co-leads (hence why Aaryan gets first billing in the credits even though Sanon is a bigger star). The story is set in Guddu’s world, populated by his friends, enemies, and extended family. Though Rashmi is from the same town, she’s treated as an outsider, returned from Delhi to a hometown in which she mysteriously knows no one except her father, his toady, and her mother, whose face is covered in every shot save one.

Even on his home turf, Guddu is the least-active participant in the story. Abbas offers almost all the answers to every ridiculous new problem the couple faces while Guddu stares silently. Guddu undergoes very little character growth, written as he is in the mold of Bollywood male protagonists who are inherently flawless to begin. As such, the obstacles on the couple’s path don’t force them to evolve, making the march to their inevitable happy ending feel increasingly ponderous.

Guddu’s position as the story’s fulcrum would be hard to embrace even with a more talented actor in the role, but Aaryan isn’t up to the challenge. He seems unsure what to do with his face, maintaining the same bland expression no matter what reaction is required, and his voice has a strange, hollow affect as well. Aaryan’s whole performance seems like a lackadaisical Akshay Kumar impression.

Aaryan and Sanon have zero chemistry, although she has a delightful rapport with Khurana. When the three are in scenes together, Aaryan is an obvious weak link. It’s a shame that a romance between Rashmi and Abbas is precluded outright by his being Muslim, but Luka Chuppi is clearly a one-issue movie, and interfaith romance isn’t it.

As is his wont, Pankaj Tripathi steals every scene he’s in as Guddu’s tacky, lascivious brother-in-law, Babulal, who wants to mess up Guddu’s relationship with Rashmi. If the movie were nothing but shots of Babulal snooping about in his absurd attire, it would be an improvement.

That still wouldn’t solve the film’s biggest problem, which is that there is zero chance that Guddu and Rashmi will break up once they decide to get together (which Rashmi does out of the blue after a song montage). Luka Chuppi‘s message is that young people would like their parents to stop freaking out about live-in relationships, but the film’s presentation of the live-in relationship as a trial run for marriage is moot if the subsequent marriage is mandatory — which is why the movie has no narrative tension. Luka Chuppi is a polite request for open-mindedness, not a demand.

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