HASSE TOH PHASSE MOVIE REVIEW

Watching Hasee toh Phasee, we felt one thing for certain – mainstream Bollywood is increasingly getting experimental even in a populist genre like rom-com. Socially inept lead woman, likeable loser of a lead man who is unsure of the relationship but sure of not breaking it up for fear of finding another girl and a whole lot of ‘this-could-have-worked’ moments, brilliant and smart casting that actually works – Hasee toh Phasee has all these and more.

Set in a wedding, essentially, Hasee toh Phasee is about a good-natured young man’s pursuit of happiness in life - establishing a career, straddling between his bride and her estranged sister and seemingly falling in love, again. The opening scene – elaborating the inventiveness of the film’s lead pair as children – works well as a preface for the story.

In many ways, Siddharth is the star of the movie. He has a genial screen presence and he is confident when he does things, making him the most bankable character of the movie. He is smart, slightly confused but unwavering about his faith in his relationship – even until after Parineeti’s Meeta explicitly asks him to marry her.

The fact that Parineeti’s weird personality is never really explored or explained (despite her rattling off things like ‘high density polymer ball that can produce electricity’) makes it hard for us to side with her character and her ostracizing from the family. It doesn’t help that she falls for Siddharth who is marrying her sister.

Her hyperactive blinking notwithstanding, Parineeti and her inexplicable pills popping of her own concoction is something of a mystery in the movie. She is a geek and a recovered addict all right but her character’s writing goes completely overboard from the geek-chick that you get to see when the film opens, and transcends into something of an uninteresting wanderer. Adah Sharma though, is fitting as a television actor, typical girlfriend material.

Manoj Joshi and Sharat Saxena provide credible performances as fathers of the leads. And the supporting cast is apt without getting too much in the way of the narrative. The sort of title song, Shake It Like Shammi, and the melodious Manchala stand out in Vishal-Shekhar’s music and Amar Mangrulkar’s non-intrusive background score is another plus.

But for its shortcomings, you have to give it to director Vinil Mathew for plotting a movie, largely without the usual Bollywood hullabaloo of soppy romance and mindless dream sequences.  It is real to some extent and the earnest Siddharth and the effortlessly charming Parineeti make the movie worthwhile.

You know how the film is going to resolve as it unfolds like a ‘Classic Bollywood template romance’ but the wait for the expected happy ending is worth it. And we always tend to love our lead characters falling in love with another person, despite being in a long-term committed relationship. Running away from weddings is another act that is catching up, what with Shuddh Desi Romance last year and now Hasee Toh Phasee. That, Parineeti is the lead actress in both the movies is a nice little coincidence.