By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar” has such a pretentious start, you really have to soldier through the BS to get to the watchable and mildly entertaining parts.
Directed by Luv Ranjan, who co-wrote the script with Rahul Mody, “Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar” stars Ranbir Kapoor as Mickey, a Delhi boy who runs multiple businesses, including a side-hustle with his best friend Dabbas that involves helping people break up with their partners. However, Mickey’s own romantic life gets complicated when he falls in love with Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor), and the two bizarrely decide to get married within a week of meeting. Yeah, many things in the story are farcical. Sure, some people don’t even meet before they decide to tie the knot in India, but the characters’ decisions in this film don’t align with their portrayed personalities.
Luv Ranjan and his team try to cram in several “Pyaar Ka Punchnama” style rants by their characters, which are simply annoying. There’s very little originality in the script; even the “break-up” business idea isn’t new (“The Break-Up Artist,” “The Breaker Upperers” to name a few), and many of the dialogues sound like they were written for a stage play instead of the big screen. Mickey and Tinni’s “meet cute” is barely interesting, and many of their subsequent interactions are cringe-worthy. Even though Ranbir and Shraddha look great together, their on-screen chemistry shuffles between adorable and awkward. The elements that work for this script are some of its themes, although they are oversimplified and glossed over. For instance, the very real problem of modern couples choosing to ghost their partners or find the easiest way out of a relationship instead of having an honest conversation about their problems.
At two hours and thirty minutes, this romantic comedy is at least an hour too long, with jokes so bad that you would laugh at the writers’ idea of comedy rather than the supposed funny scenes. For instance, they think showing a little girl (probably just ten years old) drinking alcohol with her uncles would garner laughs. The climax was chaotically cliched, if one started to make a list of romantic movies with similar endings, there would be an entire book to read. Interestingly, a post climax song featuring Mickey’s family was a lot sweeter than the entire plot of “Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar”.
It’s a 5 on 10 from me. You can stream it on Netflix.
Subscribe to our YouTube Podcast for reviews & ruminations
