{"id":8034,"date":"2019-02-03T20:49:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T01:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/?p=8034"},"modified":"2019-02-03T20:49:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T01:49:54","slug":"movie-review-ek-ladki-ko-dekha-to-aisa-laga-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2019\/02\/movie-review-ek-ladki-ko-dekha-to-aisa-laga-2019.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nRating : 2\/5
\nGenre : Drama
\nYear : 2019
\nRunning time : 2 hours
\nDirector : Shelly Chopra Dhar
\nCast : Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Seema Pahwa, Brijendra Kalra, Regina Cassandra
\nKid rating : PG-13<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga<\/strong> I was expecting a lazy, ghisa-pita<\/em> jaded tale<\/a><\/strong> of Bollywoodian romance. What I got was way worse.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been listening to the buzz around this film, you already know that this is a lesbian love story gone mainstream. Amazingly \u201cmainstream\u201d and \u201clesbian\u201d in the Bollywood context aren\u2019t oxymorons anymore. So yes, ELKDTAL is a brave film for even venturing down this path. Unfortunately for us, brave does not equal watchable.<\/p>\n

Sweety (Kapoor Ahuja) from Moga, Punjab, is a closeted lesbian. Brother Babloo \u201cVirji\u201d (Duhan), a stickler for patriarchal norms, suspects as much, and keeps a close eye on \u201cabnormal\u201d Sweety. When he realizes that she\u2019s been making trips to Delhi to meet her female lover Kuhu (Cassandra), he concocts a story about her being in love with a Muslim man and exhorts their father, businessman Balbir Chaudhary (Kapoor), to marry her off to a \u201cnice Hindu boy\u201d. And then . . .<\/p>\n

Early on in the film, in the dim confines of a theater watching a play, Sweety opines that the play she\u2019s watching is flawed \u2013 it \u201chas no feel\u201d. This is ironical because this is pretty much the way I feel about ELKDTAL \u2013 no feel, no depth, no nuance. This film is superficial in the extreme; it broaches the topic of homosexuality but once broached doesn\u2019t know what to do with it. Another problem is that for an \u201cempowering\u201d film, this has its female protagonist unable to help herself \u2013 she needs male assistance to even speak her mind! The film also implies that the female point-of-view is not enough \u2013 it must be accepted and validated by a male one to pass muster.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s characters apart from Sweety and Sahil are run-of-the-mill Yashraj stereotypes \u2013 the beaming Beeji, the jovial father figure Balraj, swagger-filled Virji, bantering, adoring servants. The characters though are ill-defined, especially Sweety\u2019s and Kuhu\u2019s. Their relationship is not really shown too much, so it\u2019s hard feeling for them. There were some moving scenes depicting a father\u2019s love, and one to-be-remembered dialog from Anil Kapoor where he says that homosexuality is inborn, and has nothing to do with western culture.<\/p>\n

Sonam is very weak as Sweety. She fails to portray the mental tumult, loneliness of a closeted lesbian; a few angsty glances and some hand-wringing doesn\u2019t quite cut it. I don\u2019t give her all the blame (director Dhar must share) \u2013 after all she was marvelous in Delhi-6<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

ELKDTAL is insipid and slow-paced; I actually nodded off in the first half, the husband had to prod me awake. I wish that it had a rousing screenplay and a fiery, anger-filled heroine instead of this weak, wilting one to lead the charge. This could have been a much better film, if it had decided to delve deeper, speak plainer and actually point some fingers (a la Pink<\/a><\/strong>) instead of just whitewashing the solution as \u201cacceptance\u201d. Acceptance doesn\u2019t come about all of a sudden, one fine day. It takes time, an open mind, and the ability to countenance a different point of view \u2013 a truth this film seems to be unable to speak or address.<\/p>\n

Kidwise<\/strong>: Clean. Talk of homosexuality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : 2\/5 Genre : Drama Year : 2019 Running time : 2 hours Director : Shelly Chopra Dhar Cast : Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Seema Pahwa, Brijendra Kalra, Regina Cassandra Kid rating … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[222,76,14,28,160,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-222","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-rating-pg13","category-social-issues","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : 2\/5 Genre : Drama Year : 2019 Running time : 2 hours Director : Shelly Chopra Dhar Cast : Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Seema Pahwa, Brijendra Kalra, Regina Cassandra Kid rating … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-25A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8034"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8044,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8034\/revisions\/8044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}