A spirited attempt that loses steam
There’s potential for humour in any Indian wedding — and the grander it is and the longer it lasts, the funnier it is likely to get. The rituals no one understands, the relatives revealing their eccentricities, obscene shows of wealth, the harried young couple being shunted around.
Oddly, though, in Bollywood, the grand wedding is celebrated in earnest — a culmination of a love story, a chance to break into a sangeet number — rather than as a backdrop for humour.
Debut director Anshai Lal’s Phillauri, seen simplistically, is two films in one. As satire, it’s pretty on point. Unfortunately, there’s a full-blown romance rolled in that goes from briefly interesting to dull and long.
Twenty-six-year-old Kanan (Suraj Sharma) is not sure he’s ready for marriage. But his parents are. Especially since he has an eager childhood sweetheart waiting. He flounders through it, helped along by endless joints and Freudian dreams about drowning. Into this fray comes the ghost of Shashi (Anushka Sharma), after a tree is cut down.
The humour remains measured through most of the first half. The absurdity of a manglik marrying a tree — still a prevalent custom; the loud music, the endless drinking and partying, as seen from the perspective of a sceptical 100-year-old ghost.
Yet, there is a solid, redeeming twist that could have held and justified Shashi’s back story. Unfortunately, the film takes on too much – rituals and superstition, patriarchy, class divide, even a bit of colonialism.