HASEE TOH PHASEE: Parineeti rules! Writing Rocks!! One of the most refreshing Rom-Com!! [3.5/5]

If I could really take my eyes off the extremely sweet, lovable, charming, carefree and magically inexplicable Parineeti Chopra in debutante Vinil Matthew’s ‘no non-sense’ romantic comedy HASEE TOH PHASEE, I would have certainly noticed the ‘time demands’ merger of one of the most celebrated production houses in the industry and the most promising pool of talents. No wonder the product in result comes out as one of the most refreshing, brilliantly acted, smartly written but quite a balanced in nature rom-com in recent.

It neither forces you with the typical candy floss boy-meets-girl feel with all those unreal slow-motion shots overflowing with foot-tapping song & dance numbers and forceful melodramatic complications in the storyline. Karan Johar style of cinema masters in that league. Nor it makes you feel drained out with insipid, self-indulged, dead existent stories with layered harsh reality what Anurag Kashyap school of cinema is known for. It stands somewhere in the middle of both.

Nikhil, played by Sidharth Malhotra is all set to loose his bachelorhood for his girlfriend Karisma [Adah Sharma] of 7 years. Just 7 days to the d-day & he happens to meet a girl from the bride-side who’s no one else but Karisma’s younger sister Meeta, played by the infectious livewire called Parineeti Chopra. She supposedly was a drug-addict. She has this weird syndrome that deals with different kind of sensations in body as described by her, “thartharahat, sarsarahat, sansanahat, gudgudahat, dagmagahat, farfarahat & more”. She takes pills to be active on life. She eats toothpastes. She blinks her eyes in a certain ‘in your face’ way. She talks faster than you imagine. She’s anything but the girl next door; still you will find it hard to look anywhere else if she’s there in the frame. You feel connected to the girl who is equally sentimental but confined & reserved in revealing the wounds from her past. Same goes with confused Nikhil who is now left with choices that could ruin or rule his life afterward.   

HASEE TOH PHASEE is a good mix of over-the-top Indian emotions with uber cool practicalities of today’s generation. So, if there is a ‘would-be Damaad’ asking for financial help from his ‘would-be Sasur’- a saree king, in the most unhesitant manner, you would also find a rigidly traditional family that could abandon their kid for life as she had once decided to run away from the house. Though the film couldn’t save itself from being conventional & convenient specifically in the storyline, it compensates that with the garden-fresh characters [Casting director Mukesh Chhabra deserves applause for giving apt faces to fill the requirement], believable performances, quirky-witty-smart writing [Harshvardhan Kulkarni takes the credit here] & a sense of pragmatism while dealing with the situations. Beautifully cinematographed & crisply edited! But the performances are above all especially Parineeti. She amazes, surprises & also manages to move your heart with her ‘blinking eyes’ presence on screen. Sidharth plays it highly confident and a total fit for the role.

At the end, it feels good to see that the genre of romantic comedy in Bollywood is getting blessed by good grown-up writing. Watch it if you want a nice break from regular romantic love-stories! Watch not if you still believe in unreal overdramatic romance only made for cinema-screens! [3.5/5]

ONE BY TWO: Some ‘Khushfahemiyaan’ result in ‘Galatfehmiyaan’! This is one of those! [1.5/5]

Go for any ‘picture perfect’ picturesque postcard of your preferred dream-destination and try to imagine looking at it for longer period of time [Precisely 2 hour and 19 minutes in this case] and no matter how strongly you wanted to be at that place, you will end up falling in the fear of loathing it with tremendous boredom. Screenplay writer Devika Bhagat’s début directorial venture ONE BY TWO is that very beautiful montage of tranquil but lifeless frames that doesn’t decide to move at all and stands still till you decide to walk away.

ONE BY TWO is an urban rom-com about 2 individuals, best described as ‘clichéd fools’, sharing monotonous boring lives of same intensity in its own. Amit Sharma, played by Abhay Deol is stuck in his life-cubicle with a couple of vigorously influential friends, overtly affectionate mother, a totally ‘deserved to be overlooked’ father and his soon-to be-an ‘Ex’ girlfriend. On the other, Samara Patel [Abhay’s real life love-interest Preeti Desai] is torn between an alcoholic divorcee mother and her sky high ambitions to rock the stage in a dance-reality show. Now, there is nothing in the story that could show off a ‘New & Fresh’ tag to it. You have seen it all in more than few romantic comedies on Indian screen.

Though the approached manner of filmmaking smells spanking new with less dramatic situations, concisely crisp dialogues straight from the horse’s mouth with flavors being genuine, real and almost unwritten but in a way, it is too simple, ordinary and pathetically slow-paced to be entertained. Film does have enjoyable moments, by and large with Abhay Deol being the person in charge but not sufficient in numbers. Watch him playing the popular ‘Nirma’ jingle on guitar in desperate times after his break-up. In other, he performs on ‘I am Pakao’ed´ in his boxers when his potential in-laws come to approve him of being an eligible son-in-law.

With sharp hands on editing beautifully amalgamated with promising narrative pattern, skilled cinematography and neat-clean-classy art direction, film paints scenic frames on screen but not without a long-list of ‘ifs & buts’. Story rejects to move ahead. Situations are dragged and absolute run-of-the mill. Leave the impeccably adorable and talented Abhay aside and the ‘known for it’ performers [Rati Agnihotri, Jayant Kriplani, Lillete Dubey, Darshan Jariwala] ham like there’s no tomorrow. Preeti Desai looks good on screen, is confident but that doesn’t get translated much on screen when it comes to acting. Pace is killing. Length is drastically stretched.

On the whole, Devika Bhagat’s ONE BY TWO is not bad because it is bad but worse because it ruins the option and opportunity to redefine the ‘not much explored’ genre of ‘easy-on the head’ urban romantic comedy sliced from the lives of cool, carefree & casual generation of today’s times. Would it not have located its base on the clichés, it could have been much better. Samara Patel enforces in the film, “I don’t believe in fairytales. Real life is better”, I wish Devika had taken it seriously while putting it all on the paper. Some ‘Khushfahemiyaan’ result in ‘Galatfehmiyaan’. You don’t get mislead. [1.5/5]