Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Actors: Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor
Rating: One and a half
The hashar (ruin/devastation) that the ‘hero ka best-friend’ character goes through in the usual bread-butter Bollywood movies, I suppose, is a motif that merits an amusing study. Ideally, by someone more academically inclined!
Consider the hero’s BFF bloke in this picture. Completely jobless, as usual, he’s called Bantu, with a proper official name, Pankhil Gupta, aka the “guardian”.
Because, for no conceivable reason, he accompanies the hero and a girl to crash a big fat desi wedding.
He jumps out of sheer disbelief when he spots Karan Johar (this film’s producer) at the same do. You see him hang around at the director’s disposal in some scenes.
But wholly disappear, when he’s not required/recalled — without any intimation of where he could be, while the movie is, more or less, placed over a single setting.
This mainstream mistreatment gets so hilariously gross, at some point towards the end, that he’s not even in the scene, but we hear his faceless voice-over, telling the hero to hurry up, or they’ll miss the flight!
Who’s this actor? I don’t know. And clearly, not supposed to, either. We know the leads: Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor. The former plays Sunny Sanskari. The latter, Tulsi Kumari. Together, they make the movie’s title.
Just a week before this release, the same producers, Dharma, opened their critically acclaimed film, Homebound, in theatres. I’m told they were also looking/hoping for a Hindi title for the said movie, but in the last minute, couldn’t find an apt one. Everything they thought of was already registered.
Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari, so unusual that you’ll find it harder to remember, was obviously thought of by no one else.
It also goes in line with its director Shashank Khaitan’s previous, full-blown Bollywood rom-coms, also starring Varun: Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014; such a super-watch), Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017; a slightly lesser sequel, in spirit, of course).
What about this pic? Well, it’s about the hero, heroine, recently dumped. Their exes are getting married to each other, in turn. These leads join forces to sabotage that ceremony.
Their exes are taken; they’re not. But this premise is so taken that if you had to name it in English/Hollywood, you could just place Wedding as the first word, and add, Singer (1998), Planner (2001), Crashers (2005)…
Or play dumb charades with those titles within this movie itself. As the characters do, over an elaborate afternoon session. Which has the destination wedding venue and guests in place, already.
What else do you need to keep this party going, for a picture, at a palace in Rajasthan: performances, one after another, on the sangeet night, bhaang/Holi sundowner, tourists’ day-out (wildlife safari), the works.
Most such desi weddings, where you dress up and dance, in real life, anyway, attempt to approximate Bollywood.
Treat this as the same thing in reverse, if you may. How about the prospective bride (perennially bored, Sanya Malhotra) and the groom (painfully disinterested, Rohit Saraf)? Well, what about them…
The guy is heir to ‘Singh Enterprises’, stepping out of a private chopper with his company’s logo on it. He can’t be with his ex, as in super-attractive Janhvi, because she has an uncool name, Tulsi?
Or that she’s not rich, making “Rs 25,000 a month”, for a teacher’s salary — Uber drivers can make twice that.
Likewise, the girl’s ex, as in Varun, takes home Rs 50,000 from his family firm, which is a proper, high-end jewellery shop! All these blokes call themselves “middle-class”, which should baffle economists studying Indian poverty.
I know: Why dissect what’s meant to be deliberately, deliciously dumb; no? This is a comedy, for God’s sake. And that really boils down to the jokes, for whether they land or not.
Literally every gag here bears a stale Bollywood/filmy reference, making this mainly a series of sasta in-jokes.
Starting with Varun, who appears as Baahubali in the opening sequence, being berated for looking like “Ranveer Singh ki dhoti mein Prabhas ka paudha.” Whatever that means. I’m guessing, a loser. That he’s anything but. Only brought on board to play one.
Also, to shoulder this pic, as the self-titled Sunny, doing mimicry of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Jeevan, et al; dance like Govinda, and other goofy acts, that so work sometimes (Jug Jug Jeeyo; 2022), and so not, too.
Such as this movie. Which, having given up on watching for its own worth — here I am, looking for the hero ka best-friend (where did he go?), and the side-cast (Maniesh Paul, Dharna Durga, et al), who could be more fun, in fact.
Or observing the product placements (from momos to scooters), counting the number of remixed songs…
Basically, pinching myself, eventually. Not out of disbelief, of course. But to warn myself, writing right now, and earlier, looking at Sunny, “So nahin (Don’t sleep)!” Seriously.
