06 June,2026 08:16 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
(L-R) Pooja Hegde, Varun Dhawan, and Mrunal Thakur in ‘Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai’. pic/Instagram
Much mehnat (effort) to watch this movie, I tell you. To start with - first day, first show at my local theatre stands cancelled.
Secondly, box-office bloke at the other cinema can't tell the film's title - Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai - while I can only hum it! We figure it out somehow. I'm in.
Whether or not âmehnat rang layegi', as goes the proverb - the effort will produce flying colours - this picture with costumes, altogether, in deadly pink, blinding orange/ochre, and lemon greens, looks like a rainbow, alright.
It opens with Varun Dhawan and Mrunal Thakur, husband & wife, at the counsellor/therapist's office. He wants a baby. She doesn't. He wants to have sex. She'll have none of it.
Both want out, eventually. Divorce is the obvious option. If only life's issues in such comedies were so straight and simple. What'll we watch for the supposedly breezy two hours, that feel like five hours, anyway? Frankly, I don't know what I have, either. Well, it's a movie, what else! But what kind?
Between David Lean and David Lynch, I suppose, you would've covered fair extent of world cinema, or Hollywood, at any rate. Nothing can prepare you still for David Dhawan.
And I mean this, foremost, as a compliment. In the sense of the naughty 1990s, if you may. What with villas, Kader Khan, and crappy furniture; Shakti Kapoor, and senselessness, around the spiral staircase. Template's set. It's auteur cinema, alright.
Only, the auteur in such stuff was actually the star. Namely, Govinda (Aankhen, Haseena Maan Jayegi, Shola Aur Shabnam). None could match. None have since.
Much as we love the tireless, clean shaven, six pack abs, Varun - I really do - it's impossible to compete with an X factor, much less an actor. Also, perhaps, that man-child, main character energy belongs to that era alone.
As for this pic, it's gotta twist in the knickers. Since that appears in the interval, hardly a spoiler to reveal - there's the hero number one, who's got two women pregnant.
He learns of this on the same day. As in, "International Pregnancy Day". I learn from Google, that is, September 9 (ninth day of the ninth month!).
One woman's his wife (Mrunal). But they've been mutually separated for a while. Blame it on champagne. The couple drank and slept together once. The guy doesn't remember. The other one's his legit girlfriend (Pooja Hegde). He'd moved on, and been with her, all along. Nobody's in the wrong.
Technically, the three of them could simply sit together, and sort it out. So, what's the conflict?
Well, I'm asking - where's the comedy? What follows, for an entire second half, are multiple, second-rate skits/scenarios, where the hero and two heroines could actually bump into each other.
Think Priyadarshan's Garam Masala (2005), with Akshay Kumar rotating between three crushes, within the same home, if you will. That was a male fantasy, with an audience that looked nothing like Akshay. The 1990s heat was still on then. As with Partner (2007), David's last hit with Govinda.
No knock on jokes - nobody should judge them, whether problematic, or politically incorrect. But I'm sitting here, hoping to find one.
How about that bit about the infant's "naam-karan" - "Iska naam Karan rakhte hain!" No? Okay, better still, as one of the characters says, "I'm a vegetarian, but I can still smell something fishy [in this whole thing]." Yup, you gotta eat, in order to smell a fish.
At some point, the script slips so out of the syllabus/spectrum that I give up. I stretch my legs, to savour the several songs, instead.
The main tracks are from David's Biwi No. 1 (1999): Ishq Sona Hai, that explains the film's tongue-twister title, and Chunnari Chunnari that became quite the rage with newer audiences after Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding (2001).
These songs have gone into litigation. Reportedly, the original producer, Vashu Bhagnani, has dragged this film's producer, Kumar Taurani, to court. Between Bhagnani, Taurani, with claims worth crores, I hope the OG 1990s composer (Anu Malik), lyricist (Sameer), will get something out of this.
The audience, of course, can't sue filmmakers for an unfunny flick. You were supposed to leave your brains behind. I did. Now that I can't take whatever's happening, onscreen, must stage a walk out. But my body doesn't move.
'YUCK ''WHATEVER '''GOOD ''''SUPER '''''AWESOME
