Full marks for effort but fails to satisfy
secondary characters is fleshed out. Shubh Mangal Saavdhan is the story of Mudit and Sugandha, who fall in love at first sight. She wants to be sure what they have is love. On what should have been a passionate night of confirmation, though, they discover that Mudit has erectile dysfunction.
The film follows the efforts to get him cured; families and relatives soon get involved.
There is laughter, tears, anger and frustration. But none of it feels genuine. We’re not invested in these people as a family, so the chacha/fufa’s anger, the childhood friend’s taunts, fall flat.
There are patches of fun and even brilliance. The middle-class, DDA flat-residing family’s life is recreated beautifully. The scene where Sugandha and her mother discuss sex, with the mother never uttering the word, is hilarious, especially when she goes ‘Hey bhagwan’ when the daughter does. When she then describes, in the same ladylike manner, the soft-porn poetry she wrote on her wedding night, you can’t tell if it’s fact or fantasy, but it’s moving, and funny.
Bhumi is convincing as the woman next door battling stifling traditions. After her performances in Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, this is no surprise. Ayushmann is a star. He is by turns funny, charming and irritable — and totally at ease with his character.
With some fleshing out, this film could have shone. Instead, it ends up leaving you, well, unsatisfied.