A clichéd but amusing take on marriage Shaadi Ke Side Effects
The secret of a happy relationship? Love, of course. No, wait, that’s no good alone without trust and honesty. But maybe the real secret is respect? Unless it’s all of the above. Or, umm…NOTA?
We spend a fairly generous chunk of our lives trying to figure out how to secure our happy endings. In Saket Chaudhary’s Shaadi ke Side Effects, we see a couple try their damnedest to hold on to what they have for about two and a half hours. What they have is a great marriage. And lots of great sex. But with great sex comes great responsibility, and we wait with baited breath for Sid (Farhan Akhtar) and Trisha (Vidya Balan) to have predictable reactions to a positive pregnancy test result — she says they should have the baby, he isn’t quite ready yet.
After a quick “should weshouldn’t we” conversation, Sid and Trisha finally decide to have the baby. Sid is eventually all over this new baby plan, and takes to reading baby books and strapping a water balloon to his stomach. When the baby actually comes, though, Sid tries and tries, but just can’t get it right. And he and Trisha aren’t what they used to be — she’s obsessed with the baby, he’s having something of a midlife crisis. They’ve gone from ‘Double Income, No Kids’ to ‘Single Income, No Sleep’. It leads to fights and frustrations and the confirmation of every “ridiculous” suspicion a woman has ever had about her man.
It doesn’t help that the entire thing is narrated from the man’s perspective — of course that’s usually funnier, because even though us women are the ones with all the alleged crazy-making hormones, they’re the ones having panic attacks and behaving like they need to be institutionalised. My only problem with the movie is that Trisha never gets to defend or explain herself. We even somehow get suckered into forgiving Sid for his many lies — something you’d never do had the same story come out of your own partner’s mouth. But because Sid is portrayed by the super charming Farhan Akhtar, who’s always a pleasure to watch, it’s all very amusing.
If you can find a way to not take it personally and calm your inner feminist, Shaadi… is actually fairly enjoyable. It relies almost entirely on Balan and Akhtar, ably supported by Vir Das, Ram Kapoor, Ila Arun and Purab Kohli — all of whom are clearly talented but have limited roles. The second half of the movie makes way for some slightly avoidable drama, but it doesn’t make you want to stab the screen.