Movie Review – Running Shaadi by Suhel Johar

Running Shaadi Can Be Given A Miss.

 

A 23-year-old Ram Bharose (Amit Sadh), his teenaged geek friend Sarabjeet Sidana aka ‘Cyberjeet’(Arsh Bajwa) and his ex-employer's daughter Nimmi (Taapsee Pannu) strike upon an ingenious brainwave of starting a website that helps young couples in Amritsar to escape their parents' expectations and get married after eloping.

Bharose’s latest startup may be full of risks but somehow Nimmi is convinced of its prospects and is full on with Bharose in his new business venture. A large part of the first half is spent in establishing its main characters and their equations with each other.

The young lead pair, Ram Bharose and Nimmi, talk about her menstrual cycle, discuss premarital sex, abortions and other ‘sensitive’ topics casually, like how most young people do. A few years ago the whole thing would have sounded ridiculous and totally blasphemous. But what we witness here is totally commendable and believable from a couple that shares a No Strings Attached open relationship.  

Despite an unusual start the script in order more or less follows an oft beaten path as the film progresses showing a very clear divide between parents who hate the website and youngsters who love it. So it was really a letdown to see families of those couples who had eloped having a happy reconciliation with them rather than showing something more dramatic or out of the box.

As the story progresses, lovers begin to state the most common reasons they want to run away - inter-caste marriage, inter-religion marriage, financial difficulties, family rivalry, and arranged marriage.

Interestinbgly, Running Shaadi’s trailer shows everyone, from a Muslim man wanting to run away with a Hindu woman, to a gay couple, to an old man, all asking for help to run away. Strangely and conspicuously though, the trailer never shows any women asking.

The first half of the film dwells on explaining to you the creepy new business concept of Running Shaadi and try to convince you that it is the best thing to happen in the web world. The film actually gains momentum in the second half but the director fails to hold your attention for long. Too soon though the film begins to meander and monotony starts setting in as Bharose and Cyberjeet run through dozens of couples with hardly any variation in their personal stories. The few twists that are there, even though predictable manage to elicit a few chuckles here and there.

Incidentally, the makers of Running Shaadi were forced to delete ‘.com’ from its original title Running Shaadi.com. The Bombay High Court order was passed on a petition filed by a popular matrimonial site with a name similar to that of the original title. Due to the court ruling the constant beeping out of the .com is a bit irritating.

Performancewise, more than the lead pair it is the support cast that make the proceedings somewhat livelier and watchable. Be it Cyberjeet (Arsh Bajwa) or Bharose’s English spouting Bihari uncle (Brijendra Kala) both of them entertain. Both Amit Sadh and Tapsee Pannu have already proved what they’re capable of but in here their performance suffers due to half baked characters.

The film’s cinematography and production design are not distinctive, which is surprising since Roy was a noted cinematographer with Sarkar and Sarkar Raj among other films to his credit before he turned director with this one. The length, at 1 hour 55 minutes, is just right but what is not is its poor writing, poor editing, poor music  - it just fails to click with you.

On the whole, Running Shaadi can be given a miss.