Review: SONU KE TITU KI SWEETY

BHAI-BHAI KE BEECH MEIN HYPHEN HOTA HAI,

LADKI NAHI!

3 stars

Mini Review:

‘Bromance or Romance’ is the underlying premise of the

battle of the sexes film. Although it feels misogynistic to

paint women the way they have in the film, it is so delightful

and frothy and fun, you come away smiling. Are all

girlfriends needy or plain manipulative? Will Sonu save his

best friend Titu from his girl? What is true love? Do Punjabis

drink and wed? The film is a tad too long, but has enough to

make you finish gigantic popcorn tubs.

Mini Review:

What happens when the best friend of the groom does not get

along with the bride to be? It’s a wonderful mish mash of My Best

Friend’s Wedding and How I Met Your Mother but it stands happily

on its Punjabi feet, supported by Tandoori Chicken and alcohol.

Sonu is used to rescuing Titu from disastrous relationships. Kartik

Aryan (of Pyar ka Punchnama fame) is Sonu to his bestie Titu

played by Sunny Singh Nijjar (rather amiable). It is easy enough

for save Titu from a girlfriend who won’t delete a dating app from

her phone. But when Titu and his family get enamoured by

Sweety, Sonu faces a daunting, uphill task: How does one rescue

one’s best friend from someone who is just too good to be true?

Sonu is a part of Titu’s family. Titu’s mum, Ayesha Raza is

particularly amazing. Her suggestion: If it is an insult to carry

mithai from a rival shop when they go to meet Sweety’s family,

then we put the mithai in our family mithai shop box.

Titu’s granny rules the house, but there’s a pair of older gents

who steal the thunder right from under the younger bunch:

Titu and Sonu and Sweety. This pair is the older version of Titu

and Sonu: Grandpa Alok Nath and his best bud Virendra Saxena.

Alok Nath gets to say the most outrageous things and his

delivery is so good, you cannot help but guffaw at his wicked

dialogue.

‘I have one rule in life,’ says Grandpa Alok Nath, ‘Never tell an

asshole that he is an asshole.’ The curse word is of course

bleeped out in the film which makes the dialogue funnier than

it is. The grandpa and his bud are Sonu’s sounding board.

They help him plot the overthrow of the enemy that is slowly and

sweetly taking over Titu’s world. But the two old gents play from

both sides, and that adds to the fun.

At the engagement ceremony Sweety turns out to be not so

sweet. We’re not given any reason why she turns into such a

calculating miss, but the challenge to rescue Titu becomes even

more daunting and more fun. Yes, yes, the women are not

shown in a kindly light, but this film gives us a break from sweet

syrupy romances Bollywood is used to upchucking every week.

The war of the sexes gets to a point where grandpa offers

inadvertent advice: Poison cuts poison. And Sonu finds the perfect

poison in the shape of Pihu. Ishita Raj Sharma is brilliant and you

shake your head at how clever Sonu is each time Sweety reacts to

Pihu’s presence. The fact that it’s a wedding and the bride is

getting mehendi done, which means she cannot do anything makes

the situation hilarious!

There are many holes in the narrative, starting with Sweety’s

motives for being the way she is, and why Sonu believes women

are always wrong, but it is offers us reason to watch out for a

sequel. The film is as Punjabi as it gets (read alcohol and

expletive soaked), and boy, do the characters have fun!


(this review appears on www.nowrunning.com )