If only the movie could hold its own the way Raveena Tandon does in a cream and gold Manish Malhotra lehenga, Ghudchadhi would be half the entertainer it set out to be, notes Sukanya Verma.
Nostalgia for Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon evokes their torrid chemistry recreating the iconic food scene from 9 1/2 Weeks in Aatish. But in Ghudchadhi, a movie so horribly stuck in time, it's a shame to watch the '90s hotties trying to whip passion out of paper.
Adult relationships are a rarity in Bollywood.
Senior and second marriages are even more so.
On that account, one could say Ghudchadhi has something new to offer. But if you think there's any meaningful conversation around it in the offing, Dutt and Tandon waltzing around Delhi landmarks is the extent of it.
Directed by Binnoy K Gandhi, Deepak Kapur Bhardwaj's outdated script has a seemingly outrageous premise where a boy and girl, both raised by single parents, fall in love and decide to get married, only to discover one's dad and another's mum are childhood sweethearts who've rekindled their romance and plan to get hitched.
Of course, incestuous consequences must be avoided at all costs and conveniently planted skeletons in the closet pop out at the right place and right time as easily as the script finds kidney donors for transplant.
Ghudchadhi is what happens when coy and cliches join hands.
Take it all with a pinch of salt as young ones, played by Parth Samthaan (think Himmesh Reshamiya, except younger and not so expressionless) and Khushalii Kumar (a corporate professional styled like a soap opera starlet) take a fancy for each other over underwear presentation. The puerile jokes stretch longer than the elastic's shelf life or Aruna Irani's misogynistic matriarch let off the hook as old-fashioned and a mother-daughter serious talk likening boyfriend to 'khilona'.
Several other catty aunties from kitty parties, lonely uncles in the park’s laughing club and overgrown men exploiting their pension receiving mums are tossed into the melodrama for laughs and lessons.
But the only believable sight in this sham is Dutt drowning his sorrow in drinks and Raveena's perfectly coiffed hair.
If only the movie could hold its own the way the ravishing actress does in a cream and gold Manish Malhotra lehenga, Ghudchadhi would be half the entertainer it set out to be.
Ghudchadhi streams on Jio Cinema.
