Tanu Weds Manu

‘I love you and what’s that got to do with you…’ seems to be the mantra that drives Tanu Weds Manu and much like a hidden lover you don’t really care or worry about, hidden intentions make this romantic-comedy a half-baked approach.

Manoj Sharma or Manu (R. Madhavan) is the true silent types who no one really notices. He can carry on with his quite and rather lonely existence but being a London settled Indian doctor his parents have lined-up a bevy of girls for him to choose and settle down with. Manu lands up in Delhi and is immediately shunted to Kanpur where he not only meets but instantly falls in love with a passed-out after-downing-a-quarter-Vodka-and-five-sleeping-pills Tanuja Trivedi aka Tanu (Kangna Ranaut). He readily agrees and the families take off to Vaishno Devi to seek Mata’s blessing but Tanu tells her husband to be that she’s in love with some dude called Awasthi and he better back off. Manu’s confides in his man Friday Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal), who can’t understand how Manu could agree to marry someone who was sleeping through the meeting! Manu continues to meet other girls but can’t seem to get Tanu out of his mind and fate smiles on him when he ends up meeting her again at his friend Jassi’s (Eijaz Khan) marriage who is marrying Payal (Swara Bhaskar), Tanu’s closest friend. Much to the disappointment and even embarrassment of everyone right from Pappi, Payal and Jassi Manu doesn’t being chagrined by Tanu making him dance to her tunes. Every now and then Tanu gives Manu some hope of but nothing stops her doing what she pleases. Much to Manu’s shock she asks him to help her run away from home to marry her boyfriend but Manu being Manu convinced both the parents and everyone falls in line for Tanu’s dream wedding. But the compulsive rebel that Tanu is she now craves for something more exciting.

Tanu Weds Manu starts off on a very promising note as it gets its atmosphere so well that you almost feel a party of the great shaadi drama that unfolds. You smile at the family members trying to force fee the daamad to be, you move to the Manu Bahiya Ka Kariye number as if you knew the bhaiya in question, but as it goes along the film ends up falling prey to a very average and, at times, almost pathetic treatment which makes it another run of the mill experience.

Following the tradition of Jab We Met, Tanu Weds Manu has a hero who is reticent to the extent of being mistaken for a piece of furniture and the gal who’s full of beans but unlike Jab We Met, Tanu Weds Manu can’t rise above the basics, which is very sad for the film gets the fabric very well and has many more interesting characters like Pappi, Jassi and Payal in addition to the leads.

The screenplay of Tanu Weds Manu tries hard to make something magical of otherwise done to death filmy situations. In addition to lead characters that end up looking secondary to everyone else around them, the screenplay goes for a toss as the film progresses. Manu pines for lady love and the background is filled with songs about broken dreams, heartache as bitter as the taste of neem but everything seems a little too forced. Tanu on the other hand wavers from one emotion to another in the name of a living it to the hilt character but it’s too much to expect that the two are made for each other in the name of opposites attracting.

The acting in the film is a mixed bag but most of it isn’t bad. Madhavan gets the reserved Manu right on numerous accounts but after a while he seems to be uninterested in his own story; his Manu just doesn’t do anything proactive and at one point when he pets a stray dog as he waits for sun to shine on him, you end up laughing. Tanu could have been Kangana’s ‘Geet’ moment but she falls woefully short; amongst other things it’s almost impossible to fathom what she says at most moments. Deepak Dobriyal and Swara Bhaskar make both Pappi and Payal come alive. Dobriyal has not been give ample opportunities but you give him half a chance and he shows you just how he can take an average character with regular lines and transform the mundane into magical. Bhaskar plays the Bihari Payal with such ease and conviction that you almost mistake for her one; in her scenes with Kangana where she’s drilling sense into Tanu she outshines her more talked about co-star. Even Eijaz Khan, and the two fathers- Rajinder Gupta and KK Raina get their characters well. Jimmy Shergill’s takes a great amount of screen time in the second-half of the film and as always, tries to make most of a handful of scenes he gets.

Unlike most of the romantic comedies Tanu Weds Manu had many elements like a decent storyline by Himanshu Sharma, nice music by Krsna, great characters but most importantly the texture and feel of the whole UP family marriage scene that could have made it much better than what we end up watching. In spite of Kangana Ranaut’s strange shenanigans and an uber reserved Madhavan who might put you to sleep, Tanu Weds Manu is still harmless and even a fun watch at many places.

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5

Cast: R. Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut, Jimmy Shergill, Eijaz Khan, Swara Bhaskar, Rajinder Gupta and KK Raina

Written by: Himanshu Sharma

Directed by: Anand L. Rai

Image: www.wikipedia.com