I am inclined to believe that Luv Ranjan has a love-hate relationship with the Indian soap operas – Sonu ke Titu ki Sweety, seems more informed by the Balaji telefilm operas than traditional bromance comedies; his universe in a sense, exists on the border of parody of the soap opera – with well dressed people in backlights, glossy eyes, center framed close ups, grand manors, with proper sound for each major turn of events and ideas.
And here lies the charm of the film – Luv Ranjan, in that sense is intelligent – we the audience first recognise the element being parodied, and he brings you in the joke – you have seen it on TV numerous times, you know why it doesn’t happen in that particular manner in real life – the filmmaker marries the parody with the object of parody. Consider, the scenes he highlights, which draw out the laughs – characters standing on the threshold with moist eyes while the doors are closed on them, or the transfer of house/shop keys – the characters stand in awareness of the absurdity of the scene, and we laugh – we have seen this scenes many times before in absurdly serious operas where they happen with such gravity – here we watch it in their context.
It is in some sense an interesting inversion of the soap opera – we enjoy the film, because for once, we are with the vamp, against the impossibly righteous bahu (to be), which has been justified through the notion of friendship. But it is this justification of through friendship that makes it problematic in the climactic end.
There is no justification within the narrative, for us to believe in the possibility of her being malicious (she has to explicitly blurt she is ‘chalu’, in a film occupied with people with decent understanding of family relations), except for the fact that she is not the one through which we receive the story – our POV is that of Sonu, and thus we have to align with him. But maybe Luv Ranjan doesn’t provide any justification because he doesn’t need to – he isn’t interested in telling that story. Sweety ke Titu ka Sonu is not the film he is making.
But it mostly succeeds – because central to the film is the fear of the moving on as friends (even if the expression of bromance is taken to absurd heights, crossing to more than just male bonding) – we too shall willfully let friendships die for other eventualities in life. And that control freak partner which our friend (or kid) might choose ultimately asks one to chose between me or him, is the one thing we fear but ultimately relent to. I hope the irony of Sonu doing the same to Sweety is not lost to us. It succeeds in that very particular climactic moment, but Sonu, Titu and family ultimately sit together, mockingly, discussing marriage prospects. Fading friendship is an eventuality, if an unpleasant one, which we can mock for the time being.
3/4
hungryrj 