In case anybody entered the room late when Nadaaniyan was playing on the TV screen, they’d immediately know it was a Karan Johar (Dharmatic production). The characters look, act and behave the same, and exist in similarly rarified surroundings.
Directed by Shauna Gautam, the film is set in Delhi, at the “ultra elite” Falcon High School (School? At age 18, the teens should be in college), with “resort vibes,” where the therapists’ fees are higher than the school fees, a voiceover by the leading lady informs the viewer. The students speak Hindi with vaguely foreign accents, and overshare everything on social media. But none look like they need therapy on a regular basis.
The self-confessed “poster princess of entitlement and privilege”, Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor), is facing the ire of her two besties, because she was out of reach during the holidays (at a retreat!), while the mean guy one of then has a crush on, was sending her romantic messages. To pacify them, she says she already has a boyfriend, and then to make the lie convincing,she has to produce a suitable guy.
Enter swimming champ and debate wiz Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan), who is hot enough to appeal to Pia, and middle-class enough to accept money to fake-date her. But the friendless dude (why?) from a stable family (father-doctor, mother-teacher) lives in a posh Noida bungalow, so does not pass the snoot test. (In the old days, the heroine would have picked a taxi driver or mechanic, but Noida is as low as today’s hoity toity girl will stoop!) Pia’s classmates sneer at the scholarship student, her mother (Mahima Chaudhry) is appalled that he is not from a wealthy business family; her philandering father (Suniel Shetty) gets to discuss “fiscal deficits, budgets and future predictions” with him. Funny, that a lawyer should talk about finance with an aspiring lawyer! But then Nadaaniyan is the kind of airheaded film, in which Arjun gets to be debating team captain, not by clearly articulating ideas, but by lifting his tee-shirt and flashing his six-pack abs.
In Pia’s home, they wanted a son, so she is not taken seriously – Arjun has to tell them that their daughter can be a lawyer because she has a “razor sharp” mind, though neither he, nor the audience gets any evidence of it.
This is a romcom, of course, the two fall in love, go through a misunderstanding, as some whiny music plays in the background, a possible rival (Meezaan Jafri) interrupts for a short while, and then they come together in a clinch, after the right woke-ish dialogue has been dutifully spoken. So anyone who thinks Dramatic films are just about fashion can be silenced for a few minutes, even though the lines are about kulfi and falooda.
In spite of all its supposed modernity, Nadaaniyaan has old-fashioned touches like Arjun’s mother only talking of cooking for him and doing his laundry. And these days, which teenager commits to a relationship for life?
The little humour there is, comes from Archana Puran Singh, playing the silly principal called Mrs Braganza Malhotra, who tries to keep up with Gen Z acronyms, but doesn’t know what WTF stands for.
If Dharmatics idea of romance has not grown beyond the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai template, the world has thankfully changed—that’s why a film like this is made for streaming and does not pitch the two nepo kids into the cinemas to gauge where they stand. Maybe, if they step into the real world and survive playing out-of-fairytale characters, they can be judged fairly for their talent, or lack thereof.
Nadaaniyaan
Cast: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Mahima Chaudhry, Suniel Shetty and others
On Netflix
