An Experiment Gone Awry -1.5 Star

A nonetheless from Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya. (courtesy: kritisanon)

A science fiction love story undone by a defective battery, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is hopelessly half-baked fare. Nary a phrase that the Shahid Kapoor-Kriti Sanon starrer intones is within the realms of significant dialog, not to mention comprehension. Whether it is ever humorous, it’s only unintentionally so.

Written and directed by Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah for Dinesh Vijan of Maddock Movies and Jio Studios, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is a rom-com that masquerades as a household drama and manages to be neither.

The movie has shades of Maria Schrader’s I Am Your Man, a German sci-fi drama launched in 2021. The movie’s feminine protagonist, an archaeologist on the lookout for funds for a analysis venture, agrees to spend three weeks with a humanoid robotic programmed to be an ideal associate attuned to her each single want, feeling and impulse.

This isn’t to recommend that Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is a rip-off of I Am Your Man. It can’t be. The German movie was a serious-minded, philosophy-tinged romance. The movie beneath assessment is a fluffy, flaky affair that takes subsequent to no time to return unstuck.

As soon as the novelty of the notion wears off – and that occurs fairly shortly – there may be little on supply right here barring the truth that that is the primary time that Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon have teamed up.

Greater than anything, it’s a misogynist’s unbridled fantasy. It reduces the ‘excellent girl’ to a super-robot designed to bop to the tune of its maker or proprietor, an obedient machine coded to take orders and be switched on or off on the flick of a button. That’s something however humorous.

What Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya desires to drive at turns into amply clear when the only hero tells his married male buddy that the robotic girl who has strayed into his life is best than a nagging spouse. Neither of the 2 bats an eyelid when that line is delivered as a result of they consider {that a} girl has acquired to be engineered to fall in line. If that’s any comfort, the 2 males could also be filled with themselves however they don’t seem to be outright poisonous.

The movie that these characters populate is a casually, unabashedly sexist comedy of manners, a slapdash cross between an obnoxious Kabir Singh and an incoherent Pyaar Ka Punchnama.

The male protagonist of the movie, Delhi lad Aryan Agnihotri (Shahid Kapoor), is a robotics engineer who, on a visit to the US, falls for Sifra (Kriti Sanon). He has no clue who the woman is till a lot injury has been finished.

Sifra is probably the most formidable creation of the hero’s maternal aunt Urmila Shukla (Dimple Kapadia), proprietor of a thriving robotics agency within the US of A. The latter insists that the robotic is supposed to be a companion for lonely hearts however doesn’t inform us why the ‘humanoid’ should be a lady on the beck and name of her grasp.

Aryan is lonely by selection. He not solely turns down woman after woman chosen for him by his household, he additionally spurns the advances of a feminine colleague on the grounds of lack of compatibility. However a day trip with Sifra, super-efficient caretaker of his workaholic mausi’s house, forces the standoffish man to let his guard down. Life shouldn’t be the identical once more for Aryan.

TBMAUJ begins foolish. With each passing scene, it turns into sillier and sillier till it scrapes the underside of the barrel. A besotted however confused Aryan is unable to get Sifra out of his head. He convinces his aunt to ship the robotic to Mumbai, the place he works. He takes the woman house and passes her off as an orphan.

A robotic let unfastened in a conservative Delhi family is meant to result in humorous conditions. However the movie stays steadfastly unfunny. The gags fall flat. The performers need to push themselves to squeeze one thing out of the sloppy script. However theirs is a dropping battle.

Aryan calls his brood “a traditional Indian household”. He could also be proper as a result of they’re as orthodox and obstreperous as they arrive. His grandfather (Dharmendra), paradoxically, appears to be probably the most versatile of all of them. Aryan’s mother and father (Rakesh Bedi and Anubha Fatehpuria), his paternal aunt and her husband (Grusha Kapoor and Brij Bhushan Shukla) and an single uncle (Rajesh Kumar), stick-in-the-muds of various varieties an levels, all have a say in Aryan’s private choices.

Inevitable problems come up when Sifra enters Aryan’s house in Delhi. She is method out of his household’s league. She is truthful and really stunning, has flawless pores and skin, and might cook dinner exceptionally properly and shortly. She will sing and dance, too. And is from America and but sanskari besides.

What extra might a “traditional Indian household” – particularly of the type that Bollywood motion pictures have invented for mass consumption – ask of a possible bride? They collectively fall in love with the girl who can do no mistaken.

Sifra clearly has no company. She is in spite of everything a machine who does precisely what she is commanded to do and must be continuously charged. Nicely, the household is thrilled to bits to search out her of their midst till her true identification is sprung upon them.

All of the tune and dance and the feeble makes an attempt at tickling the humorous bone don’t yield a lot dividend. The movie depends far too closely on the chemistry between Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon to assist it tide over its gaping crater-sized holes. However since its progress is akin to that of a substandard automaton acquired from the gray market, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya runs on empty and isn’t even mildly diverting.

It’s all hole prattle and no actual substance. An experiment gone awry, it’s two and a half hours of cinematic profligacy. Avoidable.