Last Tuesday I trekked to the FunAsiA theatre in Richardson to watch Indian romantic comedy Shaandaar. The film was directed by Vikas Bahl and produced by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. It starred Alia Bhat as Alia Arora, the adopted daughter of Bipin, and Shahid Kapoor as Jagjinder Joginder the event planner for Alia’s sister’s wedding. The film takes place at Isha’s destination wedding to the most awful and obnoxious man, and features a love triangle between Alia, Jagjinder Joginder and Bipin. Bipin believes that there is no guy that will be good enough for his daughter, while Alia is a creative dreamer and Jagjinder Joginder is a doer who can make anything happen (IMDB). From their first rocky encounter on the road to the wedding’s desitnation, Bipin hates Jagjinder Joginder, but he slowly realizes that he is the perfect match for his daughter Alia. While very cheesy, the film was incredibly light hearted and left me feeling very warm and fuzzy at its close of a fairy tale ending.

The FunAsiA theatre itself is very charming, even though it is nestled back into a dark plaza in the middle of seemingly nowhere. The moment I walked through the doors of the theatre a wave of gorgeous and fragrant Indian spices washed over me. Sadly, the theatre was out of kabobs but I still treated myself to some samosas. I had never had a samosa before and was pleasantly surprised. Oddly, they taste like chicken potpie to me and the crispy, buttery outer crust was my absolute favorite part.

I did not have much prior experience with Bollywood film before this movie, and they are truly the most aesthetically pleasing and colorful works of film that I have ever seen. The way that the characters spontaneously erupt into dance numbers in an entirely different setting lends a magical aspect to the films. There were definitely aspects of the film that I found surprising, most specifically the sense of humor. There was an entire scene in which the two families are tripping on mushrooms and marijuana brownies and are essentially frolicking in the middle of a field. It was an extremely odd scene, but so very entertaining. Also, at the end of the film the villain, Mummiji, dies suddenly at the table. After taking photos and playing with her corpse, the characters realize that the wedding cannot go on if Mummiji is dead. Therefore, the solution appears to them that they will put dark sunglasses on her and wheel her around the wedding as though she is still alive. I appreciated the dark humor of the film in these scenes as a pleasantly unexpected surprise.

The film received very mixed reviews, with Deepanjana Pal at Firstpost describing the writing as sloppy, commenting that, “it’s more a series of YouTube sketches than a proper story” (IMDB). The film also received a 3.8 out of 10 stars on IMDB and a 2.5 out of 5 audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Although I agree that the film is sort of a collection of different sketches, I think that with such a long movie the sketch format was effective in keeping the audience engaged. In my eyes, the sketches formed a proper story and I would recommend this film to anyone looking for something different on movie night.