Dream Girl Review: An Average Film With Some Good Performances, The Writing Is Terribly Loopholed

Movie: Dream Girl

Director: Raaj Shaandilyaa

Actors: Ayushmann Khurrana, Nushrat Bharucha, Vijay Raaz, Annu Kapoor, Manjot Singh

My Verdict: Ayushmann Khurrana’s Pooja Was Good, The Faltered Writing Makes It An Average Film

Rated: 2.5 Stars Out Of 5

At times there are a lot of expectations tied to a film and then after you are done watching it, you look at yourself in the mirror and the image sort of looks crestfallen! You feel a little low and things look and feel a bit too dull. Well, these are the consequences of not liking it as much as you thought you would. That’s exactly what happened to me when I left the cinema hall after watching this Raj Shaandilyaa film.

It was off to a good start but then things steadily started rolling downhill! I wouldn’t say there were no moments, there were, but the sad part is even though the lead cast were good at their performances and they were not short of it at all, it still felt as though there was something missing! I don’t quite know what it was.

The setting is God knows where? Is it Haryana? Is it Uttar Pradesh? We don’t quite know. The lingo is Haryanvi, the milieu s a mix and merge of some UP locales and some Haryana locales and these friends (Karamvir and Smiley played by Ayushmann and Manjot Singh respectively) are roaming around in what looks like the streets of Delhi!

If geography is what least matters to you, there are some stupid loopholes in the film and they will question your sanity! Well, we know that it was a comedy film but that doesn’t mean that there will be no sense in the scenes you are writing. I mean picture this – we see a couple indulging in some PDA in the lift and later we get to know that the guy has just come to see off his girlfriend to her office. Not to forget, the guy also professes his love to her in the crowded lift grabbing the attention of  Roma (Nidhi Bisht) who has started to hate men apparently after her third heartbreak! The guy promises to gift the girl a diamond ring and in the very next scene, he casually walks into the office and asks his girl for some money! Now, Roma confronts him and after a heated argument between the two, it is revealed the guy is a flirt and the girl breaks up with him but not without a big ruckus inside the office! My question is what happened to the security? How can someone barge into the office just like that? Isn’t that ridiculous?!

The film is replete with many such loopholes in the script and if I mention all of them, the entire story of the film will be out! So not doing that for sure!

Coming to the performances – Ayushmann Khurrana was good but there was nothing extra-ordinary. He did what he thought would be the best, so no complaints there at all. The voice in which he speaks to people on the telephone is done nicely. We are sure there is a lot of tweaking done during the post-production there as well.

Nushrat Bharucha looks beautiful, for some reason, maybe because I have a thing for girls in Salwar Kurtis and long flowing tresses. She looked so pretty in every frame. Having said that, there is nothing much for the actress to work with. But whatever little time she got in front of the camera, she looked so plausible. 

The main actors who really set the balls rolling for the film are Vijay Raaz and Annu Kapoor. Vijay’s cop act with a flair for Shayaris was too good. His Haryanvi lingo which was corrected by Ayushmann’s Pooja and his rebuttal on that was hilarious! He is a fabulous actor and it goes without saying. He is just too good and so is Annu Kapoor, who plays the role of Ayushmann’s father. His body language, facial expressions and lingo are unparalleled. Their’s were the portions which extracted some genuine laughter!

Manjot Singh got more screen time than Nushrat in the film and he did justice to it. He was pretty good as Smiley, Karamvir’s friend who stands with him no matter what.

The first half managed to hold the attention but the second half for some reason as just over-stretched, should I say over-stretched and preachy as well. I mean the soliloquy by Ayushmann on how lonely everyone is, was just plain weird! I mean, the film suddenly meandered from being a leave-your-brains-outside laughter ride to an intense sermon on why people make calls to these call centres and indulge in some dirty talk!

The biggest problem in the film was the writing. It picked up the pace at times and then again it treaded the sloppy road. There were so many loopholes in the writing. The one-liners even though will surely extract laughter from the front-row-audience, the crux of it bore no weight. In a film with a subject as this, much more could have been done. Much more! But then again, I should not forget that it was a light-hearted film, so that can be forgiven for sure. Having said that, Raj’s direction was taut, and he kind of knew his comedy and made sure that didn’t go off track.

The film will surely lure the audiences in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. You never know since many mindsets from those small towns flock in the big cities as well, the collection might sky-rocket here as well. But we bet, the movie is going to get most of its viewership when it is broadcast on TV.

The music of the film is surely nothing to boast of, there is Radhe Radhe which surely is peppy, but nothing that you would remember. There are thousands of such songs that get composed and written day in and day out!

Coming to the technicalities, the cinematography by Aseem Mishra is an okay job done. He didn’t get anything fancy to play with and neither did he try. It looked as though I was watching a TV show on the big screen! The usage of colours at times was so pungent that it looked weird. The sound design was also an okay job done.

All in all, an average film, with some good performances, dispersed here and there.