Kriti Kharbanda and Rajkummar Rao‘s comedy movie ‘Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana‘ has been finally released today. The movie which is directed by Ratnaa Sinha and produced by Vinod Bachchan. The movie features Rajkummar Rao and Kriti Kharbanda in the lead. However, Ratna Sinha’s movie marks all the Bollywood boxes which includes romance, drama, revenge, songs and much more. In the movie, both the actors (Rajkummar Rao and Kriti Kharbanda) will shines a light on the gender inequality, dowry, and corruption.
The movie opens up as a two Kanpur families and they are busy finding the match for their children. Both the families force Aarti Shukla (the role played by the Kriti Kharbanda) and Satyendra Mishra (the role played by the Rajkummar Rao) to meet at least once.
In the movie, Rajkummar Rao is essaying the role of a government clerk and he is having a little ambition and his sources of contentment is a family owned three-story building. On the other hand, Kriti is essaying the role of a college topper girl and she has a dream of becoming an IAS officer. Both of them are not having any intention to get married but later they decided to get along with the flow as both of them are having a lot of common values and interest.
Kriti’s father is out of the budget to do a marriage of her daughter and he decides to sell his land so that he can give his daughter a perfect start in her new family. The girls just not have to deal with dowry but there are many other things that they have to deal with. Kriti’s mother in law has a different definition of an IAS officer, she says that “Is Ghar mein to humi sarkar hain, bahu Aaye aur Ghar sambhale. Isi ko Sarkari Naukri samajh le. Humare Ghar me bahuein Naukri nahi karti.”
While Kriti does not wants to get married because she wants to pursue her career. Rajkummar is a young, idealistic and obedient man. He impressed Kriti by his progressive mindset but Kriti is better educated than him and she always keeps on correcting his English. Their first meeting is quite adorable with the small-town innocence intact. The two have shared the coffee cups they have even shared the plans for the honeymoon and they both were discovering their best friends in one another.
While both the families were engaged in the dowry negotiation. Marrying in a family which is lower than in you in status and you can be sure that the girl and her family is always on the check. However, in our society securing a government job is exactly same as winning a lottery. The movie will also show that how Rajkummar’s mother is determined to uphold and exploit the tradition of dowry and how Kriti’s father bends to the pressure of a prestigious match.
However, Rajkummar and Kriti were not aware that what is happening between their parents, both were carrying a smile on their face and they face anding future plans. Kriti is a very bright girl but she is limited by her father old-fashioned thinking. When she cleared the exam of PSC (Public Service Commision) in the first attempt for her family it is a matter of pride as well it is the catalyst for a complete shakedown.
Then the movie transition to the five years later and the runaway bride is now a revered government officer and they believe that the graft charge is likely to destroy her career and during her course of investigation she reunited with Rajkummar Rao. However, this is the moment when you have carried emotional weight but Kriti still perfectly set hair and immaculate make-up and her saree was tightly wrapped are a distraction in the movie. These things distracted the audience and they did not really understand what the character Aarti is all about in the movie. In the movie, she is an independent woman who had taken up the charge for her future but she should have shown more chutzpah even in that she seemed short in the self-confidence and she was high on her tears.
The second half of the movie suffers from the malaise. The movie which is written by the Kamal Pandey and the whole screenplay is as twisted as the telephone wire. This is the first time when the director of the movie has manages to gives the social messages on the dowry, gender, equality, and corruption. The movie has not become preachy, besides reiterating the fact that Kriti has passed the PSC exam in a single attempt. However, some of the scenes looked washed out because of the lighting and the camera work. After a while, the drama has been directed in such a way that it is looking like a television serial. Moreover, the same of the cast in the movie was keep floating in the movie like Manoj Pahwa, Vipin Sharma, and Navni Parihar, who interpret some well-written characters ably.
Kriti says that she does not infuse the qualities into Aarti that would have to support her. She says not even at her lowest point. In the movie, she is essaying the character of an intelligent girl but her action hardly demonstrates that characteristics. An actor Rajkummar will be showing two shades in the movie, her characters start in the movie with the youthful, warm-hearted young man and he is unaware of the biases towards him as a boy child waiting to come of age. Later in the second half, he was a cold-hearted and a bitter officer determined to bring down the Kriti because she humiliated his family very badly. There were some twists in the movie and then the movie takes a turn of a revenge saga but then it goes back to being a love story when the curtains come down.
However, the narrative is not jerky and in the movie, there were no sudden jumps and an undertone of the love story is carried throughout. The movie ‘Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana’ will give the audience the inside view that the practice of the dowry that continues to thrive though it has been declared as an illegal. Rajkummar’s family is riding high because they have their ancestral property.