There was an anecdote that Juhi Chaturvedi, the writer of movies like Vicky Donor, Piku, etc., shared in an interview about one of the writing assignments she got post the success of Vicky Donor. When she asked for some time to write the script, the producer gave her a breakdown of the writing process. He said there will be 5 songs, so half an hour will be taken care of by the songs. Then they will add three or four action blocks, and that will also, in totality, consume a similar amount of time. So technically, what’s left for Juhi to write is almost one hour of content. I am saying this because the latest David Dhawan film Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, starring Varun Dhawan, seems to be following that terrifying advice of that horrific producer. Instead of action blocks, David Dhawan and his co-writer Yunus Sajawal have increased the number of songs. And all of this is done simply to accommodate Farhad and Samji’s novel jokes like “Dilli Dilwalon Ki, London…”.
So Jass, our hero, was in a married relationship with Baani, and they both decided to get separated and move on after Baani found it difficult to live with Jass, who was forcing her to conceive a baby. A few months later, Jass met this girl named Preet in London, and the dating scene was going smoothly for Jass. Out of the blue, Jass got to know that both his wife and girlfriend got pregnant, and what we see here is him managing this unprecedented scenario.
A man impregnating two women and dealing with that situation is the premise of the story here. It seems like David Dhawan decided to start the shoot right away when he got this one-liner idea. I am saying this because there is no real writing happening in this movie. The screenplay is basically a bullet point list of scene names, and they are either using songs or Farhad and Samji’s cheap jokes to stretch each scene. Apart from a few counter dialogue jokes, the staging of any of the humor in the movie feels exciting, and these people are still making fat-shaming jokes with elephant sounds in the backdrop. The movie shamelessly borrows stuff from shows like Friends and movies like Boeing Boeing (which was already adapted as Garam Masala), and delivers a result that has zero comedic impact.
I strongly feel David Dhawan somewhere feels that Bollywood is not making the kind of films he used to make back in the day with Govinda, Kader Khan, etc., and he is seeking the help of Yunus Sajawal, Farhad, and Samji to recreate that kind of comedy. Either Varun or his brother Rohit should install Instagram on David Dhawan’s phone and let their dad know that there is some good-quality content available on that platform, which the writers of this movie can’t really crack. And this content is accessible to people around the world. So if you cater something that is way below the standards and expect it to get received the way your movies were received in the 90s, that’s a sign of delusion.
To make the scenes funny, they are basically making almost all the male characters horny, and it just shows that you only know how to crack that kind of humor. Since people like David Dhawan value Indian culture, he makes his Playboy hero have concerns about both mothers. But since comedy is essential for the movie, he decides to make the hero run behind a third girl. Looking at the disjoint nature of that climax with Varun Dhawan’s different look, the chances of that scene being shot additionally to save the movie are really high. Ayananka Bose’s cinematography is pretty much showcasing the movie like a Kingfisher advertisement with flat lighting and vibrant colors. The remixed songs are unnecessary, and the other ones are fine to listen to when you are having a home party, not in this movie.
Varun Dhawan, in his wannabe Govinda zone, is unable to reduce the script’s mediocrity. He is trying his best to be funny by saying rhyming dialogues and jumping and falling from places. He has abs to show and dance moves to tick the boxes. Unfortunately, his efforts are cute and not great. Mrunal Thakur as Baani is basically that caricature-ish David Dhawan heroine, and the pitch of the performance is understandably on the higher side. Pooja Hegde plays the second female lead in the film, and the objective of that role is only to get objectified. Speaking of objectification, Mouni Roy is also part of the cast, playing the role of a gold-digging item dancer. Varun Dhawan has decided to keep Maniesh Paul from his last debacle, Sunny Sanskari. If he were Kuku in that film, in this one, he is Kunnu. Chunky Pandey plays this Aakhri Pasta with an MBBS kind of doctor character. It was heartbreaking to see someone like Jimmy Shergill as that brother character in this movie.
Coolie No. 1, the last outing of David Dhawan, was a critically panned film that got a direct OTT release. And if you look at it, in Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, he has gone back to the Judwaa 2 team that provided him a commercial hit back in 2017. Both movies have the same director, writers, cinematographer, editor, and hero, and much like Judwaa 2, this one also has Varun Dhawan and two heroines. It almost felt like David Dhawan decided to take revenge on all of us who stopped watching Coolie No. 1 within 10 minutes or posted something bad about it, by taking the money from our pockets by releasing this movie, which is pretty much in the same zone as Coolie No. 1, in theaters. When Double Barrel failed at the box office, Lijo Jose Pellissery had famously said, “No plans to change, no plans to impress.” Well, it felt promising when it came from LJP, but it felt really scary when it came from David Dhawan in the form of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.
