There is much to admire about the intention behind ‘Veere di Wedding’ (2018) (directed by Shashanka Ghosh): to essentially reclaim the 'bro film' and make a film about female bonding, to show women in all their crassness and imperfection, to stay away from the "marriage-is-a-happy-ending-for-everyone" fairytale that Bollywood has sold us for years, and to normalize homosexual relationships as well as women who make mistakes.
It's a pity then that the film fails to back these intentions up with anything resembling an interesting plot, real conflicts or actual humour. For the most part the film tries so hard to tick all these boxes that it goes overboard, providing redemption to characters that don't deserve any, playing up to stereotypes, and being shockingly classist. The biggest offence in my view is the fact that it is simply not funny, nor is it effective in recreating the magic of a girl gang on screen.
Shoddy writing, a terrible background score and some awful acting (Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar, Sonam Kapoor, Shikha Talsania) round off this snooze fest. Maybe we'll look back at this film and see it as the first step towards an attempt to show the love women share for each other on screen, but my fear is that it might have just taken us two steps back instead of forward. What a wasted opportunity, this.
Genre: Comedy, Chick-flick
Language: Hindi/English
Runtime: 2h 15min
Year of release: 2018
Streaming platform: Zee5
Hot take is a series in which I offer my first impressions of films from India and around the world.
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