Shubh Mangal Savdhaan!!

 First off, here’s the verdict, so you don’t delay your laughter potion. A big Thumbs Up! GO Watch! You can read this review later. (But do read it, please :-))

Shubh Mangal Savdhaan is a movie that has sneaked in from nowhere, a seemingly low-budget film that has only its story-telling to bank on. And it turns out to be the big Eid Santa-Claus spreading peals of laughter among the audience.

Now the review…

The backdrop is the Great Indian Circus called ‘Shaadi’, the setting is the very Dilli-Haridwar Hindi belt. The main characters are as real as your neighborhood Sugandha and Mudit, fed on fantasies spinned by Bollywood films. The sidies are all papa-mummy, tauji-taayiji, Ginni, Chunnu Munnu,  their cousins and their cousins… like any true blue Indian family would have.

And in the middle of all this taam-jhaam is the, ahem! ‘gents problem’. Arre wohii… !!?!! psst… ED. Nahi samjhe?

What the hell, if these guys can have the guts to make a full-on rom-com, feature film on it, toh mujhe kehne mein kya sharam… The whole plot stands on that inchy-winchy gents thingy that won’t stand 🙂

Erectile Dysfunction, is the villain of the film that is threatening to disrupt the romance and the impending marriage of Mudit (Ayushman Khurana) and Sugandha (Bhoomi Pednekar).

Very early on, on their first date night after they got engaged, a very limpid, soggy Parle-G biscuit conveyed the message to Suggu, and to the whole audience, that the poor guy had the deadly gents problem :-). (But, that’s it. Never in the entire movie did they need to or resort to announcing his embarrassing predicament to the world).

Doesn’t mean the world didn’t know. ‘Coz very soon, the whole world and his sasur knew…friends, girl’s mom, girl’s dad, so much so there were crank calls to Mudit by strangers who knew. All offering solutions.

A bold subject, right? But one that definitely needs to be talked about. And what better way than presenting it with humour. But humour in the hands of the inefficient can fall limp, like the ‘subject’ of the film.

But not this one. No vulgarity, no crass words, with sheer innuendos, and the most hilarious dialogues, the entire movie heartily spins around the issue. The movie is replete with situations after situations which bring about such uproarious laughter in the audience. There is especially one tacky poem, which almost makes you remember the iconic Three Idiots, Balaatkaar poem recited by Chatur. Here, Suggu’s practical and liberal Hindi-belt mom recites the poem she had penned on her suhaagraat, as a medium of sex education for her soon-to-be-married daughter. You cannot imagine how oblique the references to sex could get. By the end of the scene, the story of Alibaba and Chaalis Chor will surely hold a different connotation in your mind.

Then, there’s this hilarious scene in the movie, where the couple get into a room, to get into the act, and the entire janta is outside, waging bets on the rise or fall of the little gender. Sounds crude na? But the handling was so adept, that all it looked like was purely funny.

The whole movie moves on likewise, some times lagging in pace, but soon making up with just super funny dialogues. From Dilli the scene moves to Haridwar, where you have other ‘characters’ from the joint family setup with brilliant side tracks of familial rivalries and one-upmanships. There’s the chummi-distributing tauji, who gives the audience that many more chances to laugh in anticipation. There’s the concerned father-in-law who is worried that his daughter might be saddled with an impotent husband. A pompous father who needs a few drinks by sun down and who is always at a tussle with the son. Sunny Deol (read, Sunny Leone) is the highlight of his life. And there’s a super-confident mother, who is super-sure there is nothing wrong with her son and his manhood (like all Indian mothers who are sure of their laal’s charitra😉 Not to mention the girl’s broad-minded desi mom, played by Seema Pahava, who’s been having a dream run with Bareilly Ki Barfi and now this.

And there’s Ayushman and Bhoomi, who are convincingly the earnestly in love couple, who don’t let the gents problem get in the way of their future together. That’s so heartening. Never once did Suggu make the ED sound like a make it or break it factor of their love life.

And the entire molehill to mountain, pun intended, issue was so smoothly dispensed off by the sage advice of a simple jaanwaro ka doctor, who rightly put the guy at ease, that all he was suffering from is performance anxiety.

All in all, it is one of those non-superstar films, where every department of the crew puts in their best. Because their craft is the only thing what will bring them visibility in the maddening crowd of filmy duniya. The movie is a remake of the Tamil film by the same director RS Prasanna. And the adaptation to the typical Hindi-sider setting is brilliant. The songs are also very good. Ayushmann and Bhoomi seem to be to the genre born.

If I were to rate it educatedly, I would give it a 4 or 4.5. But if I am being honest to the laughter and entertainment it provided me, it’s a 5 star movie for me!