Band Baaja Baaraat - Movie Review
Published: November 8, 2011
Starring Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh
Band Baaja Baaraat is only Anushka Sharma's third outing and she's already carrying a film on her own—a testament to her talent—with newcomer Ranveer Singh making his debut opposite her. But what starts as a promising story ends up shortchanging the actors in a film important to both their careers. What's more, they make a tepid pair.
Shruti (Sharma) is a sensible, no-nonsense Delhi girl with loads of ambition and drive. Her parents want to arrange her marriage—and she has no problem with that because she thinks romance is silly—but she wants to fulfill her dream of starting a wedding-planning company first. Bittoo (Ranveer Singh) is a villager who went to college in Delhi to have fun rather than study hard, and as a result, his post-graduation job prospects seem to be limited to returning to the family farm, a fate he is desperate to avoid.
Bittoo hits on Shruti, shrugs off her rejection, and then proposes they become platonic business partners instead. They make a great team—each has unique skills that compliment the other—and their company takes off. They specialize in low-budget, kitschy weddings, but the formerly-aimless Bittoo gets bitten by the aspiration bug and he wants to move up to organizing posh, classy events. Shruti, however, is content to stay true to their roots. Their business direction is just the beginning of their conflicts. After a drunken hookup, Shruti falls in love with Bittoo, which terrifies him into ruining their professional partnership.
They are both passionate, fast-talking, pull-no-punches types who live life with zeal, but as a romantic couple, they generate no heat. And their business relationship is far more interesting than their love relationship. Through their work together, Bittoo and Shruti show belief in each other, a new experience for both of them that makes them blossom into their best selves. Their interdependent achievement becomes integral to their developing identities as a man and a woman. All of this is a compelling, complex basis for love and marriage, but as soon as they become romantically entangled, their characters turn into clichés—girl equates sex and love, boy is afraid of commitment, girl makes herself unavailable, boy suddenly must have her. While the film has merit, in the end, it boils down to a movie everyone has seen too many times before.
Band Baaja Baaraat is rated Worth Watching.
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