Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya

Watched Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya today in a late night preview show and was bit happy and a bit disappointed at the same time with the movie. I am happy because it is a nice movie which dares to blend genres, manages to keep the SciFi "Real"and even manages to find a pretty effective end to literally an impossible love story but I felt disappointed that it may be a bit difficult to savor for the masses and it doesn't excite as much as its potential.

It is a feel good movie with nice performances that should do well but if it doesn't then it will be looked back on kindly and with positivity as time passes. The basic premise of the movie is clear from the trailer - Man falls for a cutting edge very Human like Robot and wants to get married. So it is pretty difficult to imagine a satisfying and still "realistic" ending for the movie. I commend the writers on finding a pretty good ending which feels like it can be a real possibility and doesn't become a standard "Kuch Bhi" happy Bollywood ending. It is also good that the story not only shows the potential of AI but also comments on the nascency of our understanding of AI and its potential impact. This ending is going to be very hard for the masses to digest. I hope it isn't too good for its own good.

Kriti looks stunning and is pretty well cast as the Android and Shahid looks blindly in love with her. The support cast is good. Dharmendra is good and a pleasure to watch but somewhat wasted in the role. The music and songs are catchy. The jokes are funny. The movie has all the right pieces to become a hit but its theme, genre and well executed but difficult to satisfy ending may be the biggest challenge to it has to overcome For me the biggest negative of the movie is that we have already seen way too much of the movie in the trailer and songs. There are additional funny bits and the ending is completely fresh and new but the trailer feels like almost a 2 minute version of the movie without the ending sequence. The movie is entertaining and the right step towards making new types of movies. I liked the movie. I appreciate this daring effort at a new kind of Romcom. I even applaud the difficult to satisfy ending....but I didnt love the movie. 7/10.

Shahid's last big screen outing was "Jersey," which was released in the year 2022, almost two years back. Since then, there has been this painful drought for me as a Shahid fan, who wished dearly to see him grace the theatre screen yet again, and only this weekend handed me the opportunity, and I couldn't help myself but give in.

So was it worth the wait? Did my wishes get fulfilled? Let's find out.

Starting with...

Positives:

Relatively New Concept: While Hollywood, or many other foreign industries for that matter, had already ventured and reached certain heights in this "artificial intelligence" space, the Indian film industry, let alone Bollywood, maintained its distance from the subject due to a lack of funding and a lack of vision, among a dozen other reasons. Thus, I am delighted to see them finally taking that leap of faith and divulging into a territory unexplored and comparatively unfamiliar to the Indian audience. A love story between a human and an AI-driven robot is definitely a promising starting point.

Fresh Pairing: Bollywood has had this tendency of repeating the lead hero-heroine pair for ages; it's something of a tradition here, so it's nice to see a fresh pairing for a change. Shahid and Kriti look fantastic together, and their organic chemistry is what propelled the otherwise bland script (more on this later) forward.

Kriti Sanon: A special mention must go to Kriti, for she has done an impressive job on her part. Playing a humanoid robot, who shares traits of humans in flesh and blood, is easier said than done. I was impressed by her dialogue throwing, their 'timing' to be exact, especially towards the end, where she had given her best.

Now with the...

Negatives:

Lack of Emotions: Two crucial elements of an "ideal" love story are a natural chemistry between the actors and proper depth in their characters. While the first requirement is pretty much taken care of, all thanks to Shahid and Kriti's palpable chemistry, the latter aspect suffers quite drastically, mainly due to a rather lazy write-up that prioritised only the portions of comedy but not the emotional titbits.

Half-Baked Family Dynamics: When you are giving so much time and screen space to the family members of our protagonist, why on earth would you not provide the characters the required depth? I'm infuriated because there were a lot of opportunities the story could have easily grabbed and further solidified its foundation, but it didn't, or, should I say, it couldn't!

Now, ending with...

Mixed:

Middling Humour: There were three or four instances in total where I genuinely laughed, but the rest of the jokes failed to land. For a film that promises to be a laughter-filled, fun ride through and through, it sure is disappointing. Suffice it to say, I expected more. Much, much more.

Irrelevant Music Numbers: Now, do not get me wrong, I have been grooving to the tracks since they got released, especially "Akhiyaan Gulaab" by MItraz, but they do not aid the script in any way. They are merely used as commercial cinema tools, show-pieces that serve no greater purpose.

So to summarise my overall thoughts, it's a decent attempt, keeping in mind the freshness of the concept, but everything felt so half-hearted, almost like they put a leash on their creative thinking, deliberately restricting themselves from exploring deeper depths.

This film had a feel of a tv series instead of a movie. Besides that, I feel the movie could have done better if Ayushmann Khurrana was in the lead instead, as he has more range of emotions and expressions which was required for the role. Shahid's acting was kind of forced, immature and he did not come across as a software engineer. The plot though unique was limited by its writing. There could have been more comedic twists and turns to make the movie more entertaining. Kirti Sanon was good as a robot and stole the limelight away from Shahid Kapoor who inadvertently took a back seat in the movie. The most painful aspect of the movie was watching my favorite He-man Dharamendra being reduced to a frail old man, all for a nondescript role which any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done. I hope he doesn't torture our memories with such roles in the future. Dimple Kapadia was adequate as the CEO of a Robotics company. On the technical side however you would have to question the viability of a robot 18 years in the making, which still has rudimentary issues such as inadequate battery life and inability to withstand simple power outages. All in all I would say inspite of it's inherent flaws the movie is Ok for a one time watch.

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024) : Movie Review :

Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon have been paired together for the first time in Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah's robotic romantic comedy "Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya" (TBMAUJ). Sorry, did I forget to add "family drama" to the genre? Or sci-fi? I don't even know why I put comedy there. It's a very "Uljhi Hui film" if we have to discuss its genre, or maybe we'll have a roundtable discussion with experts soon. TBMAUJ actually comes up with a solid idea to at least think about it, but then we have to recollect some memories from Shankar's groundbreaking Indian sci-fi Magnum Opus, "Endhiran" (2010), to remember that this human x robot love story is 14 years old now. However, TBMAUJ adds some family dose to it but falls flat with brainstorming stuff. The control panel was not in smart hands, and the motherboard really needed a lot of repair. The engineer should have used high-IQ RAM and an advanced Gen Processor to assemble his AI robot and should have asked the robot to review it first before making it available to the public. We would have gotten a better-working product then... But alas, we have to carry on with a malfunctioning machine. I don't really understand how the stamp called "family entertainer" is used today. A family entertainer is supposed to have a bed scene (trimmed) and at least 10 kisses in today's time. Or is it just the tag for the promotional approach? Time has really changed, man.

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is about a robotic engineer named Aryan (Shahid Kapoor), who represents every genuine guy in our society. I can relate to him, as he has all the qualities of a decent man and is looking for a long-term love or wife rather than a time-pass GF or forced marriage. Since he is too much into robots, he is called by his aunt to America, and there he falls in love with SIFRA (Kriti Sanon). After having sex with her, he learns a shocking truth about her. Yes, SIFRA is not a human; she is a robot. That's the biggest joke in the entire movie. I mean, the man had sex, smooching and all, and didn't recognise a robot. Technology, boss.. Tomorrow, or soon, we will see a man have sex with a man and not recognise that he is not a woman. Blame either your manhood or brain for that. Anyways, the dumpf°° story still goes ahead with Aaryan falling in love with SIFRA despite knowing that things are not possible. The impossible task becomes even more impossible and illogical when he decides to marry her and introduces her to his peculiar family members, who are so smart that they can get an engineer's thumb impression on marriage papers, not his signature, thinking that the judge, or for that matter, anyone, would think that a man with an engineering degree is not educated enough to do a signature on papers. The same man would be called "simply brilliant" by a woman who is the owner of "E Robotics," the best robotics production company in the world. I know that the family audiences in India are not that smart, so they can easily overlook these logical things.

Somebody please write a letter to the writers and ask them what was going on here. Amit and Aradhana, seriously? A robotic engineer must be aware of every danger and threat of a machine, and here the same man is unaware of this basic thing. I would have called the script 10% logical even if he were a normal guy instead of an engineer, but now even that 10% chance is turned into a minus. Forget him, but one of his engineer friends is also quite okay with it, and don't even mention that aunt, man. It's terrible to think that three brainstorming AI engineers actually behaved like kids in the entire movie. One funny question everyone is asking nowadays is: How did a man have sex with a robot and not even realise it? That's a smackdown! How? Feelings, emotions, skin, body temperature-everything can be created by AI, I agree, but what about the whole sex process? I don't want to go "DEEP" into it, but I hope you get my point. The family drama was too cheesy and predictable. How can a man think of marrying a robot? I mean, he must have thought that after the marriage, he could leave her at home and go to the office without any fear of others knowing about her. It's so problematic and so predictable that I can tell you the sequel's story now. Things were stuck at one place for an hour or so. Nothing was moving towards "the end." Finally, it happened, only to leave you with another never-ending scrap of "to be continued.." Why!!!??

Shahid Kapoor is back to the romantic boy image, but something is terribly wrong with his script choices nowadays. This man deserves better scripts and better roles that match his acting skills. There is some forced quirkiness and humour in his character here that takes him away from what we call a "safe one." Kriti Sanon looks damn beautiful, but again, it's not that "Mimi" kind of zone. That comes once a blue moon, so we shouldn't really expect that kind of "acting" from so-so films, I guess. Still, watch out for her in the climax scene when she goes wild like hell, even though the writing is too bad there. Dimple Kapadia makes a forgettable appearance that nobody would like to remember. There is something wrong with her character right from the first scene, but with each scene, it just keeps getting worse. Dharmendra can be used for a great comic role in any family drama, but I don't know why people just keep him for a showcase and give him mediocre roles. Rakesh Bedi, Rajesh Kumar, Anubha Fatehpuria, Raashul Tandon, and others spend some time here and there to fill the screen space without spoiling the frames. Watch out for a "Bawaal" surprise cameo at the end.

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya has a good music album. "Akhiyan Gulaab" has such fresh romantic vibes, and moreover, Shahid's moves with sexy Kriti. That's some visual treat. "Laal Peeli Akhiyaan" is another good one from the album, but there are some flaws in the second half of it in the movie version. "Tum Se" doesn't leave any impact. The lyrics are fine, with a good balance of traditional rhymes and modern-day words. TBMAUJ has some good one-liners, but nothing impressive. Some dialogues look too bad and forced. Laxman Utekar's cinematography is fine, and Manish Prashan's editing is okay okay. The second half could have been trimmed, especially the last 20-25 minutes when nothing was moving ahead in the storyline. An idea for a film like TBMAUJ needed a lot of brainstorming, which Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah clearly lack. It's an illogical script with no brain. There was some heart and some emotions, but not enough to restore the film's database to a "safe" folder. It seems that "Baaton Baaton mein film hi film ulajh gayi."

RATING - 4/10*

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya attempts to blend romance, science fiction, and family drama into one package, but unfortunately, it falls short of delivering an engaging narrative. The screenplay lacks consistency and fails to maintain the momentum established in the first half. The dialogues are well-worded, but not all jokes land effectively, leaving the audience occasionally chuckling but often checking their watches.

The film's first half shines with the blossoming romance between Aryan and SIFRA, portrayed with charm by Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon. Their chemistry is palpable, and viewers are drawn into their love story. The film takes a nosedive in the second half as it veers into predictable family drama. While there are moments of humor sprinkled throughout, much of the second half feels tedious. The climax feels abrupt and lacks the emotional payoff that viewers might expect. The promise of a sequel falls flat as the film struggles to rectify its shortcomings.

Kriti Sanon impresses with her portrayal of SIFRA, capturing the nuances of a robot with admirable skill. From the tender moments of romance to the emotional beats of the family drama, Shahid Kapoor delivers a commendable performance throughout the film. Dharmendra, though with limited screen time, adds a touch of charm, while Dimple Kapadia leaves a mark as expected. Ashish Verma and other supporting actors provide able support to the lead actors.

The music, particularly Laal Peeli Akhiyaan and the Title Track injects energy into the film with their foot-tapping beats and well-choreographed sequences. Akhiyaan Gulaab and Tum Se add a lovely touch to the soundtrack, enhancing the film's romantic elements.

Direction 2.5/5 Acting 3/5 Music 3/5 Story 2/5 Screenplay 2/5.