There are two ways of looking at an avante-garde film like ‘Veere Di Wedding’ that’s making waves today. The first could be, as a frothy breezer in the genre of a bawdy adult comedy where the comic parts lie not in the situations but the stream of expletives used with gay abandon in the ‘bindaas’ attitudes of four educated young women, bonding towards shrugging of repressive social norms, including male-bashing if necessary !
The protagonists, appear to represent certain class of society which is well-to-do with affluence but has messed-up private lives with the usual ills – broken homes, bad marriages and failing relationships. They are made to come across as bold and brassy in their approach to life ( and most of all to the institution of marriage and ‘ostentatious’ symbols like elaborate ‘wedding ceremonies’ ) and defying all norms, smoke, drink, swear at will, as if there is no tomorrow !
The other approach of trying to analyze the film for its cinematic contents, is fraught with pitfalls. Obviously, inspired by the “Sex and the City’ series which were hugely popular abroad for their depiction of liberated women at their ribald best and out discover all that life has to offer, ‘Veere’ to an average Indian audience would probably ‘outrage’ the modesty of the genteel class with its profanity that comes hard and fast like never before. However, if the intention is to shock people out of their senses or convey that using colorful language is the norm with young women of today, then it seems to be working, looking to reactions and applause from some of them.
Leaving aside, the shock value of outrageous one-liners and crass jokes, the story-line is weak and only one of the characters seems to have some teeth. The two big stars (Kareena and Sonam) don’t really produce any histrionics while Swara Bhaskar (and Talsania ) try to come up to their ‘bohemian’ best, un-dress the part and raise a few bawdy laughs too ! In fact a great one-liner comes from one of the fathers in the film – ‘All marriages will have fights, in fact marriage is the foundation of fights !’ A new vision for newly-weds ?!
At the end of two hours, one feels ‘Veere’ seems to have been stitched up for some bold messages from a woman’s perspective and strong bonds that women share that outlasts all else. Somehow, among all the noise, hype and drama, the soul of this film on deep friendship and relationships is quite missing. Farhan Akhtar made ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ on male –bonding a few years back that moved us – revisiting that beautiful picture is a much better option.
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