Review: HALF GIRLFRIEND

Fully Pakaoo

½ star

Mini Review:

The ridiculousness starts when she says she wants to be his half girlfriend. And through this half baked attempt at romance, social service, drunkenness you realise that in this asinine attempt at movie making, the heroine would rather have cancer than be his girlfriend!

Main Review:

Clarification-wa:

Bihaar ke naam pe ye saale Bollywoodwale itna bakwaas karte hain ki khoon khaul jaata hai. Saala har film mein Bihari character 'Burbak' zaroor kehta hai. Is film mein yeh shabd gaayab hai. Isiliye is film ko 1/2 star. Baaki sab angrezi mein.

I'd Rather Have Cancer Than Be Your Girlfriend!

Imagine a movie where heroine fakes cancer in order to run far, far away from the hero! How pathetic must he be! And he is! Arjun Kapoor tries, and tries real hard to be that hero. But with a body built in the gym, he just does not manage to look like a 17 year old taking admission in college. The rest is even more ridiculous.

So he does not speak English. Why does he have to be from Bihar? Could be from bleddy anywhere in the country, no? Let's say his English is poor, why then does he speak Hindi the way he does? Jaw-droppingly good Hindi is spoken by people all down the cow belt! If only the filmmakers had bothered to do a little bit of research, they would have found out that Bihar churns out the maximum number of IAS officers in the country and they do not speak the way Arjun Kapoor does, if indeed he has scored marks enough to seek admission in St. Stephens College in New Delhi. Let’s say you forgive them for poor research, at least have a story to tell!

Story Bhi Half-baked Hee Hai!

What we get in the name of a story are cliches. A sackful of outdated ideas that nobody cares for.

1. A poor boy (impoverished prince, even!) meets rich girl in college. Strike up a friendship.
2. He has Hindi speaking friends which could not be more teeth-grindingly regional.
3. She goes out with him. She shops, he carries bags.
4. There is party at her home where the disparity of their economic status is made clear.
5. Her parents do not have a happy marriage.
6. He has a single mom who teaches him things like, ‘Don’t ever give up!’
7. Mother runs a school in the village.
8. She is married off to the rich boy her parents approve.
9. He thinks because she kissed him, she’s his.
10. Of course he has no idea of consent, he yells at her, ‘When you want you will kiss, but what when I want?’
11. He’s back home but is pining away for her.
12. She bumps into him, and he insists she teach him English.
13. She teaches him English, but he thinks she loves him.
14. Of course his mum says, ‘You’re divorced, you left husband, now please leave my son alone.’
15. She leaves, he runs after her train, ‘I’m afraid I’m no good without you…’
16. He gives a horrendous speech in real bad Hindi (Seriously people! Bihar is a Hindi speaking state! They couldn’t even get this part right!) mixed with English.
17. He gets funding from a morphed Bill Gates and is asked to intern at United Nations (nothing less!).
18. The girl has cancer, only three months to live, and she vanishes.
19. He goes to New York and begins to behave badly because he cannot get her out of his mind.
20. Like all Hindi film ‘Majnus’ (romeos), he searches for her in all the bars because she wanted to sing in bars in New York (no one asks why she was playing basketball in St.Stephens, though!).
21. His friends try to dissuade him, but he wanders about drunk.
22. He locates her, and she looks defeated rather than ecstatic. But because it’s a Hindi film, they make love with sheets chastely wrapped around them.

We pray he falls asleep after lovemaking so she can run away again. But thankfully the credits roll. This film leaves you puking a little inside as you watch it because there’s zero chemistry between the lead actors Shraddha Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor and even less acting skills, no earthly reason why it rains in Delhi at college admission time (peak summer!), no reason why he believes she is still alive... There’s no reason at all why you should go see this film.