Have you ever wanted to give something a chance, even when everyone around you is discouraging you from it and you know it’s going to be nothing but bad? That’s how I felt watching Nadaaniyan. There’s been something very charming about Ibrahim Ali Khan’s presence on the internet. If I had to label him, in terms of fashion, I’d put him in the “quiet luxury” category. No, I’m not objectifying the guy (whose introduction scene involves winning over the debate team with his rock-hard abs).
I’m simply saying that his branding is so well done that you can’t help but be curious about what he’s capable of bringing to the table. That’s the point of being a celebrity, isn’t it? But, when I sat down to watch Nadaaniyan on Netflix, I really couldn’t believe that someone behind the scenes thought this would make a good movie. Now, look, I’m all for giving chances and I was actually looking forward to watching this movie because who doesn’t love a good Bollywood rom-com? But boy, was I in for a very unpleasant surprise.
Director: Shauna Gautam
Writers: Riva Razdan Kapoor, Ishita Moitra, Jehan Handa
Stars: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Suniel Shetty
Nadaaniyan tells the story of Pia, an 18-year-old rich girl who goes to the poshest school in Delhi. When a misunderstanding with her childhood friends – a sisterhood, if you will – threatens to ruin Pia’s life, she decides to hire the new boy in school, Arjun, to be her fake boyfriend for a while so that she can save their friendship. But will they fall in love for real? Now, I know what you’re thinking; this sounds pretty good, but the premise of this film from the very beginning is flawed.
The misunderstanding here is that Pia has been receiving messages from one of the boys in school who her best friend Sahira is madly in love with. Instead of siding with the victim, Pia, Sahira decides that Pia is at fault for not telling the boy that she’s not interested – which automatically means she’s cheating on him, right? If they’re joined at the hip, as Pia describes them, and if they’re a “family,” this misunderstanding should never have amounted to a mountain. So the motivating incident of the movie would basically never have happened? But, okay, sure, let’s say that’s what high school is like, and even one small thing feels like a huge challenge, but is the rest of the movie worth watching just by that standard?
Sadly, not at all. This movie goes out of its way to capture the hearts of a “young” audience by casting influencers, throwing in words like “adulting” like someone’s life depends on it, and using “grid” for Instagram, like it’s going to be the next “fetch” of internet slang. Sorry to break it to you, darlings, it’s not, so stop trying to make it happen. Then, the movie gets really complicated by throwing in a gem of old cinema, Mrs. Briganza, from the legend that is Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, as the school’s headmistress to give it a touch of nostalgia. But who is this nostalgia for? Certainly not the audience you’re trying to target, who are having “adulting” forced on them at this very moment. A millennial audience might sit through Nadaaniyan for the sake of it, but this almost feels like an insult to the character and the old film (even though Karan Johar produced this one).
The story is not original and really feels like something that came from a thirty-something’s idea of “conscious” cinema (no, I’m putting down my own group). It’s like saying, “I won’t do research on the demographic I want to represent because I literally just went through everything they went through, so I know what’s best.” You really don’t. This film superficially attempts to deconstruct the class system by creating a Romeo and Juliet-esque situation for Pia and Arjun, but it barely scratches the surface. The conscious dialogue really fails to pack a punch, and there’s only one scene in the entire film worth watching, and that’s when Arjun’s father explains to him what love really is.
There’s already been talk on the internet about how new Bollywood movies seem fake, so I’ll just add a little to that discourse. This movie feels like a 2-hour long Dairy Milk Silk commercial. Everything has weird colors and there is a bokeh effect in every second scene, which is of course backlit. You know, the whole movie feels like that song scene from Main Hoon Na when all the papers start flying and SRK realizes he is in love with Sushmita Sen and the song starts playing, but not in a good way.
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