Ghudchadi Movie Review: Boy meets girl. Sparks fly. Families oppose. Drama ensues. Heartbreaks happen. But in the end, the lovers reunite. This is the quintessential template for a love story, repackaged and reintroduced countless times as “new” wine. But what happens when the “new” wine lacks flavour and has nothing exceptional to offer? The answer is Ghudchadi. While the film is themed around an interesting (arguably) subject—children of ex-lovers who are planning to marry fall in love themselves, the story ultimately disappoints. The topic of incest, a hush-hush subject rarely explored in mainstream Bollywood, is at the film’s core.
However, a one-liner plot isn’t enough to sustain a 1-hour-59-minute film. Calling it lackluster would be an understatement. Some films are so bad they’re good. Ghudchadi doesn’t fall into that category. It’s not even the kind of guilty pleasure you might enjoy after a few glasses of wine. Set in Delhi, it follows the lives of Chirag and Devika. Chirag lives with his dad, Colonel Veer, a retired army officer, and his grandmother, Kalyani Devi. He dreams of getting his start-up, which produces odorless and comfortable men’s underwear, funded and turning it into a thriving business.
At his best friend’s wedding, Chirag encounters Devika, who is obsessed with the “shaadi tax” and reads out a list of clauses her friend, the bride, expects her future husband to adhere to. Devika’s beauty, brains, spunk, and sass catch Chirag’s attention. And as luck would have it, he serendipitously meets her again when he pitches his start-up idea at a fancy office. Devika, a marketing professional, likes his idea and decides to fund it. This business deal soon gives way to a brewing romance between them.
But two obstacles stand in the way of their “happily ever after.” Devika is Punjabi, and Chirag is a Brahmin, and Kalyani Devi is staunchly against inter-caste marriages. Meanwhile, Chirag’s widowed father, Veer, and Devika’s single mother, Menka, meet again after many years, and old sparks fly once more. Years ago, Veer and Menka were dating, but Kalyani Devi’s casteist beliefs tore them apart. Now, they decide to fight for their love. Chaos ensues, and this is what Ghudchadi is all about.
To be honest, Ghudchadi has little to boast about. The script is average, the writing is lazy, and the screenplay is uninspiring, marked by unfunny dialogues and one-liners that never land. Even at 1 hour and 59 minutes, the film feels excruciatingly long. The first half, in particular, is so randomly chaotic that you start questioning the makers’ intentions. It’s also packed with a bunch of forgettable songs that add nothing to the plot. Yes, song and dance sequences add much-needed texture and color to a film about a wedding (or two weddings), but music is definitely not Ghudchadi’s strongest link.
So what is its highlight? Definitely not the dramatic scenes. Whether it’s intentional or not is debatable, but the makers seem to pay homage to Bollywood films of the ’80s, where lovers were kept apart by villainous families. However, the drama is overshadowed by histrionics and theatrics that only make you impatient and cranky.
Ghudchadi sometimes feels like a daily soap from the 2000s. Aruna Irani returns to a negative role, and the makers try hard to evoke nostalgia by portraying Kalyani Devi as a character similar to those played by Manorama, Lalita Pawar, and Shubha Khote. But it doesn’t work. Her character lacks nuance and ends up being just a boring caricature of the evil (potential, in this case) mother-in-law.
Parth Samthaan gives it his all but often goes overboard in the so-called comical scenes. In the emotionally heavier scenes, however, he’s quite good. Khushalii Kumar spends most of the second half whining and crying but fails to evoke any real emotion. Her costume designer/stylist also needs to be called out. In a bid to make her look hot and sexy, she’s made to wear flashy, dowdy outfits. Who on earth wears such clothes at work? Yes, “my choice is my choice,” but what about workplace dress codes? Why does a marketing expert always look like a teenager ready to bunk school and crash a rock concert?
Parth and Khushalii, however, share good chemistry, which comes through in certain scenes. Devika’s relationship with her mother isn’t properly fleshed out either. A well-written subplot exploring their dynamic would have added substance and weight to the plot. You might think the only saving grace is the pair of Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon. And we wish we could say the same.
It’s definitely nostalgic to see them serenading and romancing each other, but this angle also suffers from poor writing. The sequences featuring them bore so much potential but fizzle out before they can take off. Raveena, however, looks stunning and brings an element of normalcy to this cluttered story. The makers tried to pack too much into two hours with a paper-thin plot.
Director-writer Binnoy K. Gandhi and writer Deepak Kapur Bhardwaj had lofty ambitions. It’s clear they wanted to break stereotypes and explore an out-of-the-box theme. But all of that falls flat when they resort to a safe and easy explanation to justify why the marriages won’t amount to incest. These are the reasons why Ghudchadi lacks the horsepower to soar. Give it a miss if you don’t want to spend the whole film scratching your head, wondering why this script was even given life.
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