Cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Shukla, Ashutosh Rana,Kenneth Desai, Deepika Amin, Sahil Vaid and Gaurav

Direction: Shashank Khaitan

Rating:**1/2

There is no denying the fact that in Indian showbiz broadly there are just two kind of cine-vendors. The ones who follow the trend and the others who create one by their endearing cine valuables which keep the psyche of viewers enchanted for many decades. Probably many of you will agree to the fact that YRF's SRK and Kajol starrer DDLJ is one such cine marble of Bollywood which not only had been a trendsetter of its time, but also possessed a magnificent refreshing potency to inspires many of the present day cine makers too. And this time the cult classic has turned into a source of inspiration of a sort for the makers of recently released Varun and Alia starrer 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania'. The movie which released today, secured a decent opening with good foot-fall of around 75 percent at its opening.

Although with Humpty Sharma... with DDLJ stamping all over it, its makers have tried to reap maximum out of this tried, tested and most trusted formula after mild transmutation. And I am using transmutation (instead of revamping), because latter had everything well configured with a perfect pitch, that revamping it is probably not possible.


Anyhow let's enlighten you about the premise first. 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' is the story about a pampered girl, Kavya Pratap Singh (Alia Bhatt) of an Ambala based transporter Pratap Singh (Ashutosh Rana), who agrees to marry an NRI boy of his father's choice only if she will be getting a Kareena styled wedding gown (lehnga) for her wedding. But after seeing her family temporizing her demand, she decides to visit her maternal uncle in Delhi for her wedding shopping.

Soon after reaching there Kavya has a rendezvous with self willed yet adorable Humpty (Varun Dhawan) whose father runs a stationary shop in a college campus. With frames rolling ahead at a pleasing pace the duo fall in love with each other, in spite of the fact that Kavya is about to get married in less than a month-and-a-half. But the story takes a dramatic twist when Kavya returns back to Ambala followed by Humpty's arrival in the city and his unholy tryst with Kavya's father.

Initially Kavya's father abnegates to accept Kavya and Humpty's relationship, but seeing latter's persistence decides to give them opportunity and asks Humpty to interact with Kavya's would be husband, Angad (Sidharth Shukla) who is due to reach Ambala, and give him (Ashutosh Rana) one good reason to rescind Kavya's wedding with Angad and prove that why he is not a suitable match for Kavya.

So what follows next does Humpty succeeds in giving Kavya's father a valid reason to call off her wedding? Or returns back to Delhi without his ladylove? To know watch "Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya".


A boys falling in love and blossoming of their soothing till the advent of a pleasant culmination is without doubt one of the best selling ideas of Indian cine world, but it needs to have a lot more gratifying offerings before that fair apogee. Story-line of 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' takes off with splendor, but the entire entertaining excursion ends as soon as the story reaches in the second half. In-fact it won't be wrong to say that the two halves of the movie have a thorough amount of dichotomy prevailing among them. On one hand the first half emphasis on fun element and romance and galvanizing in totality, whereas the second half looks more of like a repetitive family drama lying in the zone, oozing with predictability. It's this predictability coefficient with that somewhere down the line adds to the lassitude of the viewers. And what further supplements the disaster is the absence of a few missing links and quick leap of the plot towards an awkward culmination.

Undoubtedly premise of 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' has most of the customary additives like warmth of romance, funny one liners required to make a convincing Bollywood love story. And at the same time Shashank also succeeds in putting forth that novelty coefficient which is required to make such cine flicks adorable, but alas he fails in maintaining the consistency of that emotional pitch. And probably the story line of "Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya" would have looked impressive in manuscript form, but while being on the celluloid it ends up looking like run-of-the-mill kind of cine cantata.


As far as screenplay is concerned then on that front Shashank has done a somewhat better job and has kept it as simple as he could. Although as stated above that (logically thinking) a few questions remain unrequited and even the hurried climax looks quit weird, but for that its the story-line which is to be blamed. Just like story-line even in screenplay department Shashank has tried to borrow from some of the noteworthy romantic delights of 90s, and while doing so he has thoroughly tried to mold them as per the expectations of present day audience, but while tailoring the screenplay what he forgot to blend in the entire cine enterprise is that affective constituent which any great romantic saga needs to have to sequestrate itself from the good ones.

All in all screenplay of 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' is persuasive up-til some extent, but not entrancing. Cinematography of the movie is good in parts, Neha Parthi captures the north Indian milieu with deftness, but all her efforts goes in vein due to the average story-line and slightly above average screenplay. But most devastating things besides story-line, comes from post production stage and that is egregiously lousy editing of, Menana Sagar, who miserably fails in maintaining the detailing consistency of the flow of the narration especially in the second half.


Decorated with few borrowed Punjabi tracks like "Samjhawan" and "Saturday" ( which already a hit among Punjabi music lovers) music of "Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya" has already secured a place in the hearts of those belonging to "Youngistaan".

Well as far as performances are concerned then this is the only cog which emerges as a grace saver for 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania'. And after seeing Varun and Alia performing impeccably, you can't resist falling in love with the onscreen chemistry of the couple.

After proving his acting dexterity in "SOTY" and "Main Tera Hero", Varun once succeeds in giving an impressive performance. From exhibiting that emotional expressiveness, dialogue delivery to mouthing that north Indian lingo everything this budding superstar does with such a conviction that you instantly like adoring him and his onscreen mannerisms. After delivering some back to back critically acclaimed movie in the recent past Alia once again looks at her performing best and succeeds in delivering a praiseworthy performance. Ashutosh Rana is simply outstanding as Alia's father. Siddharth Shukla despite having nothing much to do is just OK. Rest of the supporting cast comprising Kenneth Desai (as Humpty's father), Deepika Amin (as Kavya's mother), Aditya Sharma (as Kavya's brother) quite conveniently slip under the skins of their character.

But the duo which gives a tough fight to the leading protagonists despite being in supporting cast are Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pandey (playing the character of Humpty's friends Poplu and Shonty respectively). Be it about evoking that laughter or emotional expressiveness or the lovable yet laugh-worthy flamboyance everything these two performers perform so wonderfully and with such a magnificence, that you at once start seeing them as the central characters of the story-line.


To sum up 'Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania' is a decent one time watch, which will probably fall in the liking purview of all the age groups because of its simplicity. But in in the absence of that emotional dept and soul throbbing affective warmth it may not succeed in leaving the impact which its trail-blazer DDLJ left when it made it to cine arena. So I am going ahead with 2.5 stars for this otherwise adorable cine-idea which fails in impressing because of its halfheartedly jotted story-line with a perfunctory execution.