Movie Review: Badrinath ki Dulhania…loses its direction at the altar

Story and direction are crucial elements of a film – lead them astray and you end up with a bewildered, irritated and sometimes enraged audience. That’s the best way to describe what happens with this second outing of Dulhania after the underwhelming spoof on DDLJ that was Humpty Sharma.

Till about the the interval stage – the movie is quite a breeze. Some parts even shine, particularly the hilarious exchange between the main duo on a bus. Scenes like that remind you of the hilarity that a movie like Raanjhanaa offered in its first half – though the laughs were more consistent in that one. However, a key difference is that while Raanjhanaa chose a very brave direction to its plotline and maintained its grip on the audience, Badrinath goes completely awry.

The plot direction just doesn’t make any sense, especially when you consider there are two heart patients in the mix and the character who does the act is shown to be level headed and mature. While there a slew of issues that the movie attempts to tackle, or at least portray, it doesn’t really go beyond the stereotype and the rhetoric. Frankfinn Institute possibly gets its worst advertisement as a training academy as does the job of an air hostess but I get ahead of myself.

If there’s any reason that keeps you still interested, it’s the main pair that give it their best – particularly Varun Dhawan who even overshadows Alia in a couple of scenes. He overdoes it a tad too much with the comedy but his anguish is quite visible in the sadder moments. In the circumstances, the climax is particularly well done after all the dragging and waiting for the inevitable that is the second half of this movie.

The songs are few and due to the already slow narrative, still a challenge to sit through. The writing is good in parts – some exchanges will make you guffaw while others make you cringe – nothing to write home about.

Humpty Sharma borrowed heavily from DDLJ and hence had a coherent plotline. While Badrinath attempts to tell a good new story and also address a serious topic it completely loses the plot at the interval stage and doesn’t manage to recover from it at all.


As to the review title? Well that’s a bit of a paradox – you’ll have to see the movie to fully get it and I wouldn’t recommend an outing for this one.