Nadaaniyan Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Kuch hafte pehle Loveyaapa reminded everyone why there is such a raging debate about nepotism in Hindi cinema specifically. It’s upsetting for everyone when clearly unskilled children of famous people are made to parade, positioned like ready-made movie stars, increasing the chasm between the have and the have nots, inequalities of various class systems splashed across giant screens.
Didn’t think a follow up to reinforce this hypothesis would arrive so quickly on Loveyapa’s heels, but here we are.
The film’s opening notes are instantly familiar. Khushi Kapoor is Pia, the rich, spoiled, yet oddly charming girl. It’s the blueprint Ananya Pandey perfected in Call Me Bae, there even is an identical voiceover telling us about Pia’s wealthy but broken family. But while Call Me Bae was at least somewhat self-aware, Nadaaniyan, like its over-produced and underwritten opening sequence, goes on to prove that it just doesn’t understand the generation it claims to represent.
We are dropped into a glossy world that looks like a role-playing game, the characters are hardcore stereotypes. Each dialogue is very obviously dubbed, the actors sounds detached from their surroundings throughout. Ibrahim Ali Khan as Arjun, in particular, delivers his lines in stilted, robotic bursts — four or five words at a time, never quite landing on any emotional register while speaking. Trying to powerthrough on sheer determination, there is a permanent scowl on his face, happy scenes and sad. More on that later.
In this Dharma Cinematic Universe, where Archana Puran Singh is Ms Braganza again, love stories are designed by generational wealth and inter-school competitions. What is this specific film about? Nothing much. Sure it’s the story of a few kids finishing high school. But at the heart of it, what is it ABOUT?
The writing is a glaring issue with Naadaniyan. Conflicts escalate without reason or emotional depth. Pia at one point chooses to tell Arjun, a whole-ass stranger she’s JUST met, about her mother’s IVF struggles just to get him to pretend to be her boyfriend in a hare brained scheme. Unnatural and banal dialogue lacks any sincerity. One of Pia’s friends breaking up with a “bad boy” says, “Tum kabhi mere pyaar ke kaabil hi nahi they.” Which rich 18 year old talks like this?
Khushi Kapoor and Ibrahim Ali Khan share next to no on-screen chemistry. Watching them attempt romantic dialogue is almost sad, whatever Kajol-SRK chemistry they are going for, far beyond their reach. Even the songs feel like placeholders. “Pagh Ghungroo Baandh Mira Naachi” is no “Radha On The Dance Floor.”, Why does everything in this film, including the songs, feel….incomplete? First-drafty? The choreography is awkward, when Ibrahim starts to dance, it’s neither Bollywood nor High School Musical — it’s just unwieldy. The whole set up is so undercooked, it makes Student Of The Year look like The Breakfast Club.
The lead actors are far from prepared to shoulder this film. The magnetic charisma of Hrithik and Kareena in K3G, even Saqib Saleem and Saba Azad in Nupur Asthana’s delightfully campy ‘Mujhse Friendship Karoge’, is missing. Despite the support of actors like Dia Mirza who plays his mother, egging him on, and the entire might of this whole film designed to launch him, Ibrahim’s most striking quality at this point is that he looks like his father. In a debate competition, Arjun is somehow supposed to be arguing against democracy and despite being a supposed swimming champion, he only mentions swimming once. Both the material given to him to work with, and his execution of it are deficient.
Story-screenplay writer Riva Razdan Kapoor is in her early 20s if I’m not mistaken and as such, she deeply understands youth culture. Her understanding though doesn’t quite manifest. Ishita Moitra and Jehan Handa join to enhance the screenplay and dialogue, and yet, it still remains clunky.
Telling YA stories, I imagine, isn’t easy. Sure, the personalities on display aren’t fully developed and perhaps the target audience is like that too, but eventually, filmmaking is not Naadaniyan - its serious business. Conflicts, conclusions, treatment, tone, these things cannot be dumbed down and sacrificed at the altar of “youth”, Netflix’s own shows Heartstopper and Sex Education are great examples of doing this right, writing silly teenagers with a foresight brought on by adulthood, and yet not dismissing their issues as trivial. When seasoned actors like Dia Mirza, Jugal Hansraj, Suniel Shetty and Mahima Chaudhary appear on screen, they shouldn’t make the younger ones look even worse in comparison, rather it ought to generate hope that there is a newer lot ready to strengthen the legacy these folks created, fresh perspectives that’s even millennials fail to grasp occasionally.
Somewhere in this chaotic mess, there was a nugget of a sweet high school romance that could have worked. A story that could have had you wondering if prioritizing academics over orchestrated searches for true love was a mistake. A proper musical to remind you of the time you dreamt of casually bumping into and falling in love with your crush at a café. Nadaaniyan instead exists in a strange void where AI assistants talk in Hindi because Hindi audience tak film pohonchaani hai.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Nadaaniyan is….1 subplot has Arjun coach Pia for a debate competition, and youre maybe invested in it, because that’s when theyre falling in love. Except when the scene actually arrives, you don’t hear her debate, everything is drowned out by music.It’s all so silly and unserious.
