Dil Juunglee movie review: Taapsee Pannu and Saqib Saleem deserve a better film than this one
Follow UsWhen the first trailer of Dil Juunglee had released, the film held a lot of potential primarily because of its lead pair. Two of the most promising actors of Bollywood, Taapsee Pannu and Saqib Saleem, pairing up for a romantic comedy with web stars playing supporting characters made the film look fresh and for the youth. But it seems writer-director Aleya Sen underestimated the intelligence of the youth as she portrays her characters as dimwitted and superfluous.
The only ambition that Koroli(Pannu), the heroine of director Aleya Sen's Dil Juunglee, has is to get married and have kids. On the night she decides to elope with her boyfriend and some other hangers on -read friends- she is giddy with joy as she packs brinjal sandwiches for the road, makes diary entries and mumbles the joys that await her.
Koro's boyfriend, Sumit(Saleem), on the other hand, is a typical Punjabi munda harbouring ambitions to become the next SRK in Bollywood. While he decides to elope with Koro, he is most excited about the prospects of became it big in Bollywood.
Things start going downhill soon after the road trip begins much like the film itself as writer-director Aleya Sen takes two long hours to explain how confused her two protagonists are. They part ways soon after the disastrous road trip ends, as Koro leaves him at the altar. 7 years later, when they again meet, this time in London, Koro is engaged to a Business tycoon and is a successful entrepreneur herself while Sumit is a small-time actor.
Sparks obviously fly for the ex-lovers almost immediately even though both are now in a relationship with different people. While we get why Sumit is attracted to Koro- she is now far less clingy, successful and has gotten rid of that hideous hairdo from her college days- we don't quite get why she falls for him. In fact, she goes back to her diary and bemuses that how he is the same.
I don't need to tell you how the story unfolds later and how it ends but it takes Sen two hours to make the viewer understand her warped storyline. From caricature characters to sticking to all kinds of stereotypes to making her actors ham in multiple scenes, Dil Juunglee becomes a tedious film to watch.
It is also surprising to see Taapsee and Saqib- both who have shown much promise in some of their previous films- agreeing to ham and overact their parts. In the first half, Taapsee is almost like a child-woman, who has issues with her authoritarian father, cries at the drop of a hat and is nervous about everything and everyone. Then there is Saqib who overdoes the Delhi-Lajpat Nagar-Punjabi boy character and keeps saying 'Oye' at regular intervals just to prove he is a typical North Indian male. They do try to rise above the script in certain scenes, but those are less. They share a good chemistry on screen, they are good actors, and they deserve a better-written film together.
The supporting cast includes web stars like Srishti Srivastava, Nidhi Singh along with Abhilash Thapliyal and Santosh Barmola. While Srishti Srivastava hams to the core, Nidhi Singh channelizes her Delhi girl act to the hilt. The two men, Barmola and Thapliyal show some promise but are let down by poor writing.
In fact, the poor script lets down the film to a great extent. Each of the characters is written badly, the screenplay is poor and most of the so-called twists are predictable. You just don't feel sympathetic for any of them and the amount of time that is spent in establishing why Koro and Sumit are weird seem quite futile in the long run.
While the film is badly written and horribly executed, it does boast of good music by Shaarib-Toshi. The film's sets, the overall look is quite pleasing to the eyes as well.
But these factors alone cannot save the film. And much like the scene where the car nose dives into a pond, the film too nose dives into an illogical pool. Watch only if you have nothing worthwhile to do this weekend.
Rating: 1/5
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