Going to a Bollywood film for the first time wasn’t the experience that I expected it to be. The film surpassed my expectations and by the time intermission came around I was fully invested into the film. The most impressive part of the film was the big budget and lavish settings. The film started with an animated cut-scene that develops the story line for Alia, the main character who is a raging insomniac. The film then switches to current where Alia’s sister is getting married to lock down a business partnership. The story develops over a weeklong period of wedding celebrations. The film also throws at you random songs and dances that stray from the plot line, but for me were the highlight of the film. In entirety the film is about a failed business partnership, failed marriage, and a budding relationship.

After our classes trip to Funasia, I looked into the Indian movie market to see how profitable a movie like Shaandaar is. FunAsia has three theaters in Irving, Richardson, and Houston. They also have banquet halls to hold functions. FunAsia is considered the number one destination for Bollywood entertainment in northern Texas. Also, Aside from Hollywood, Mumbai is the other movie capital of the world. According to Forbes, “the number of films produced each year, Bollywood is firmly on top of the pile with 1,602 in 2012 alone. The U.S. churned out 476 films that year while the Chinese managed 745. In the same year, Hollywood sold 1.36 billion tickets compared to Bollywood’s whopping 2.6 billion” (McCarthy). Indian films don’t match Hollywood films in revenue however Bollywood produces over three times as many movies. This along with the typical length of Bollywood movies, 3 hours, shows that people in India just want to watch films.

Although I enjoyed Shaandaar, I can see why critics that reviewed the movie did not like it. Parts of the movie don’t add up or don’t make sense. Bipin can draw cartoons that actually move, like the photographs in the newspaper in Harry Potter films. How is it that two business families agree to marry off their marriageable members without doing any research on the prospective in-laws? The wedding party after a series of events ends up tripping on shrooms and pot brownies. Despite these parts of the film, the two main characters, Alia and Jagjinder, kept me entertained during their love affair.