Watching Shaandaar at the FunAsia theater was a very interesting experience to say the least. From the moment I took my first step into the theater, I knew it wasn’t going to be my average movie going experience. Since the theater was only showing Indian films, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were serving samosas and vada where a normal movie theater would usually sell soft pretzels and nachos, yet the sight of the Indian cuisine still caught me off guard. The entire experience at FunAsia, including the film itself, was nothing I expected it to be – which is likely the reason why I enjoyed it so much. Before I write about Shaandaar, I must make it clear that before this film, I had never before seen a Bollywood movie, excluding Slumdog Millionare. Shaandaar showed me that there’s a huge difference between Bollywood movies and most of the movies I’ve seen throughout my life. The movie started in full animation, then transitioned into real actors, but still used animation interpolated with the actors at random points in the film – something I had never before seen in a big-budget movie. At that point, it became clear to me that Bollywood, or at least whoever wrote Shaandaar, uses a different guidebook for making movies, and this guidebook has almost no rules at all. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of Shaandaar, but as the film continued and I became absorbed in every scene just to see what absurdity might occur next, I realized that the movie was doing exactly what it was meant to do: entertain its audience. Shaandaar undoubtedly kept me entertained for the entire course of its two-and-a-half hour run time, which is especially impressive because I had to read subtitles the whole time. Whether it was the Bollywood-esque choreographed dance numbers or the main characters randomly tripping on magic mushrooms, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen as almost every scene of Shaandaar threw me for a loop. I thought the complete disregard for reality and the wildly unpredictable sequence of events was actually what made the movie so great to me. Jai Arjun Singh summarizes the film best when he writes “Shaandaar is dynamic storytelling with unexpected flashes of warmth.”  The movie’s storyline is definitely dynamic in the sense that it bounces around the problems of numerous characters. The plot is multi-layered and focuses on several aspects: the development of the protagonist Alia’s relationship with her love interest, Jaginder, the heartwarming father-daughter bond between Bipin and Alia, Eesha’s struggles with her body image and her rotten fiancé, Robin, and Jaginder and Bipin’s rivalrous battle for Alia’s heart. In the end, Shaandaar tells an engaging story with an uplifting message to be yourself and to live your life the way you want to. Even though I can’t say that I’m likely to go back to the FunAsia Theater, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there and the film itself as well. Watching Shaandaar has opened my mind to perhaps watching other Indian films and diving into the wild world of Bollywood.