Veere Di Wedding: A bold & beautiful womance
*ing: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar, Shikha Talsania, Sumeet Vyas
Rated: 8/10
This bold and beautiful womance is the first refreshing foray of Bollywood into real-time female bonding, friendships and relationships. The fact that it does so without being coy, adds to the sheen of this breezy film where everyday life of four youthful women unfolds with fun and laughter.
The film comes with an adult tag and despite that there are a lots of beeps amid conversations which make it an interesting first in many ways. The sex talk flows without veneers and is still never over the top but reality stung.
Many would identify, though still not acknowledge, that in their growing years they did talk similar with pals, whatever tier of cities they may have come from. Yes, there may not have been swish girlie therapy holidays at the end of it, like the Phuket binge the four friends have after Kalinidi (Kareena Kapoor Khan) breaks her very Punjabi wedding almost at the altar but the rest may have been similar if not same.
The major scoop the film can boast of is its casting coup. All the four in the lead are no mean achievers in Bollywood and each has the shoulder to carry the film on her own steam. These beautiful, rich and arrived women capture the personality nuances without any hiccups. Kareena as Kalindi, a swish woman with family issues, who is in the midst of converting her three-year live-in relationship with her boyfriend in Sydney, is ethereal but at the same time believable.
Avani (Sonam Kapoor Ahuja) is no less as a divorce lawyer who is out to find a man through an arranged marriage but gets waylaid into bed quite a number of times with unsuitable boys.
The best of the lot, of course, is Swara Bhaskar (Swati) who masters a challenging role, very different from the grounded small town ones that she has so far scored in in the film industry. You might think she is feeling awkward in those ramp kinda clothes, with red lipstick, bare shoulders and stilettos that may aim to reach the skies, but she does well to gel into the persona of this rich, unhappily, divorce seeking girl whose father spent some crores in marrying her off to, well, an unsuitable boy of her choice.
Then there is Talsani (Meera) as the fat but delightful buddy who has gone some steps further and snatched a lean but not at all mean gora husband for herself with whom she has a baby but without the consent of her badey papa, an acceptability hang-up she carries with regret. That, of course, does not keep this Mother Dairy (her friends call her that because of her lactating years) away from alcohol binges with friends, throwing up in the pot and of course asking one of her friends “ab teri l*** ke liye bhi degree chahiye kya?” when her friend complains that she slept with a boy who may not even be a graduate!
But together, the four are quite a wholesome block of fun, frolic and laughter even about their issues. They are delectably modern, witty and come with a lot of brains. Here you could raise your hat for the dialogue writer who has introduced some momentous one-liners and conversations between the four.
The men in the film are peripheral and yet fleshed out. Avani’s drunken one-night stand with a totally incorrigible, rustic Punjab boy (for some reason called Bhandari) is just too funny. And the conversations they have are the flesh and blood of the film. Raucous, unabashed and highly sexed up without the sheets in between, they give you reason to laugh out aloud. Here are some: “Kal raat tu mere sapnon mein aayi thhi,” says Bhandari to Avani. “Kapdey toh peheney thhi na,” she retorts. “Bhandari tera naam kya hai yaar,” she asks many days after the romp in the bed with him. “Ghar ajaa aaj to woh bhi bata dengey,” is what he says with a leer.
There are many such to keep you engaged whenever the film starts to drag, which it does in few parts. Like “Main toh apni l*** huye hi pakadi gayii yaar,” as motor-mouth Swara delivers with great elan while talking of the hilarious incident which broke up her marriage to an unsuitable boy and there is a vibrator there somewhere in that!
All in all, a film to go to this week but do keep your puritanism in the closet before walking into this one where ‘John ka John’ makes its presence felt with a lot of mojo. Men, here we come with all the O, F and C words you threw at us for ages!
Source: The Pioneer, 3 June, 2018