Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya

Shahid's last big screen outing was "Jersey," which was released in the year 2022, almost two years back. Since then, there has been this painful drought for me as a Shahid fan, who wished dearly to see him grace the theatre screen yet again, and only this weekend handed me the opportunity, and I couldn't help myself but give in.

So was it worth the wait? Did my wishes get fulfilled? Let's find out.

Starting with...

Positives:

Relatively New Concept: While Hollywood, or many other foreign industries for that matter, had already ventured and reached certain heights in this "artificial intelligence" space, the Indian film industry, let alone Bollywood, maintained its distance from the subject due to a lack of funding and a lack of vision, among a dozen other reasons. Thus, I am delighted to see them finally taking that leap of faith and divulging into a territory unexplored and comparatively unfamiliar to the Indian audience. A love story between a human and an AI-driven robot is definitely a promising starting point.

Fresh Pairing: Bollywood has had this tendency of repeating the lead hero-heroine pair for ages; it's something of a tradition here, so it's nice to see a fresh pairing for a change. Shahid and Kriti look fantastic together, and their organic chemistry is what propelled the otherwise bland script (more on this later) forward.

Kriti Sanon: A special mention must go to Kriti, for she has done an impressive job on her part. Playing a humanoid robot, who shares traits of humans in flesh and blood, is easier said than done. I was impressed by her dialogue throwing, their 'timing' to be exact, especially towards the end, where she had given her best.

Now with the...

Negatives:

Lack of Emotions: Two crucial elements of an "ideal" love story are a natural chemistry between the actors and proper depth in their characters. While the first requirement is pretty much taken care of, all thanks to Shahid and Kriti's palpable chemistry, the latter aspect suffers quite drastically, mainly due to a rather lazy write-up that prioritised only the portions of comedy but not the emotional titbits.

Half-Baked Family Dynamics: When you are giving so much time and screen space to the family members of our protagonist, why on earth would you not provide the characters the required depth? I'm infuriated because there were a lot of opportunities the story could have easily grabbed and further solidified its foundation, but it didn't, or, should I say, it couldn't!

Now, ending with...

Mixed:

Middling Humour: There were three or four instances in total where I genuinely laughed, but the rest of the jokes failed to land. For a film that promises to be a laughter-filled, fun ride through and through, it sure is disappointing. Suffice it to say, I expected more. Much, much more.

Irrelevant Music Numbers: Now, do not get me wrong, I have been grooving to the tracks since they got released, especially "Akhiyaan Gulaab" by MItraz, but they do not aid the script in any way. They are merely used as commercial cinema tools, show-pieces that serve no greater purpose.

So to summarise my overall thoughts, it's a decent attempt, keeping in mind the freshness of the concept, but everything felt so half-hearted, almost like they put a leash on their creative thinking, deliberately restricting themselves from exploring deeper depths.

This film had a feel of a tv series instead of a movie. Besides that, I feel the movie could have done better if Ayushmann Khurrana was in the lead instead, as he has more range of emotions and expressions which was required for the role. Shahid's acting was kind of forced, immature and he did not come across as a software engineer. The plot though unique was limited by its writing. There could have been more comedic twists and turns to make the movie more entertaining. Kirti Sanon was good as a robot and stole the limelight away from Shahid Kapoor who inadvertently took a back seat in the movie. The most painful aspect of the movie was watching my favorite He-man Dharamendra being reduced to a frail old man, all for a nondescript role which any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done. I hope he doesn't torture our memories with such roles in the future. Dimple Kapadia was adequate as the CEO of a Robotics company. On the technical side however you would have to question the viability of a robot 18 years in the making, which still has rudimentary issues such as inadequate battery life and inability to withstand simple power outages. All in all I would say inspite of it's inherent flaws the movie is Ok for a one time watch.

Aryan (Shahid Kapoor) is an robotics engineer working for his aunt Urmila (Dimple Kapadia) whose new Innovation is Sifra (Kriti Sanon), a robot. Aryan doesn't want to get married while his entire family wants him to, as expected he falls in love with Sifra. An harmless experiment conducted by Urmila gives Aryan an excuse to continue his own experiment where he introduces Sifra to his family as his lover. What all misfortunes happen when Sifra tries to mingle with the great Indian family, while they prepare for Aryan and Sifra's wedding forms rest of the story.

For a film that tries to look ambitious, it only aims to be a low hanging fruit. Leaving the brain aside, for those 140mins I kept looking for one decently entertaining scene which the film was devoid of. It is not the logic but the emotions that feel forced and largely superficial, leaving the lead actor with an unlikable character, no matter how much he tries to be entertaining. Ofcourse there is a slight glimpse of "fun" in the climax scene and that's about it. The screenplay lacks the fizz to make this rom-com fun and the generic characters get unfunny jokes to mouth as well. Fair warning, the film ends with the note "to be continued" and I wish they had shown the same conviction while scripting this film, so that we could've got a better and watchable film.

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Ulza Jiya is one such movie, which literally depicts an impossible love story in a beautiful effective manner. Truly speaking, the film was a pleasant surprise. One thing I dislike about the movie is that the screenplay in the movie lacks continuity and fails to maintain the momentum established in the first half, the dialogues are well written but not all the jokes land effectively. Still I thoroughly enjoy this movie.

Kriti Sanon impresses with her portrayal of SIFRA, Kriti and Shahid look fresh and cute. The best performance of the work after mm. She is the hero of the film. Shahid Kapoor shines as always. The movie is worth watching once.

Watched Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya today in a late night preview show and was bit happy and a bit disappointed at the same time with the movie. I am happy because it is a nice movie which dares to blend genres, manages to keep the SciFi "Real"and even manages to find a pretty effective end to literally an impossible love story but I felt disappointed that it may be a bit difficult to savor for the masses and it doesn't excite as much as its potential.

It is a feel good movie with nice performances that should do well but if it doesn't then it will be looked back on kindly and with positivity as time passes. The basic premise of the movie is clear from the trailer - Man falls for a cutting edge very Human like Robot and wants to get married. So it is pretty difficult to imagine a satisfying and still "realistic" ending for the movie. I commend the writers on finding a pretty good ending which feels like it can be a real possibility and doesn't become a standard "Kuch Bhi" happy Bollywood ending. It is also good that the story not only shows the potential of AI but also comments on the nascency of our understanding of AI and its potential impact. This ending is going to be very hard for the masses to digest. I hope it isn't too good for its own good.

Kriti looks stunning and is pretty well cast as the Android and Shahid looks blindly in love with her. The support cast is good. Dharmendra is good and a pleasure to watch but somewhat wasted in the role. The music and songs are catchy. The jokes are funny. The movie has all the right pieces to become a hit but its theme, genre and well executed but difficult to satisfy ending may be the biggest challenge to it has to overcome For me the biggest negative of the movie is that we have already seen way too much of the movie in the trailer and songs. There are additional funny bits and the ending is completely fresh and new but the trailer feels like almost a 2 minute version of the movie without the ending sequence. The movie is entertaining and the right step towards making new types of movies. I liked the movie. I appreciate this daring effort at a new kind of Romcom. I even applaud the difficult to satisfy ending....but I didnt love the movie. 7/10.