Admittedly, the most important name in SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE was not Parineeti, Sushant or Maneesh but Jaideep Sahni for me, since I really love the way he writes his films with a rare realistic texture and simplicity. However after watching it in an almost full theater of mostly college students, I was somehow disappointed 'in the end' since the film neither had anything Pure (Shuddh) or Tratitional (Desi) nor truly Romantic in its 140 minutes of content, revolving around Live-In relationships to be precise. So since the main focus of the film was all around casual flirting, pre-marital sex and live in relationships, I strongly felt the title of the film just opposite to its concept as SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE very frankly.
Besides, this is the first time ever that I felt the writing of Jaideep Sahni (Story, Screenplay, Dialogues & Lyrics) very confusing and unconvincing with every single character of his, not exactly knowing what he/she really wants in his/her life and who do they love from their heart seriously. But fortunately, a viewer gets to think all this in a negative mode, only when the film reaches in its last 30 minutes and not before that.
Therefore, the good news is that till the complexities between its three leading characters reach their concluding moments, the viewers have nothing to complain at all as far as entertainment is concerned. And the film undoubtedly remains a fairly enjoyable venture both before and after the intermission with many entertaining sequences & dialogues to keep you glued. But once it reaches the finale, all the fine build simply crashes down with some absurd decisions taken by its characters and a very weird kind of conclusion is there promoting an entirely different concept of the present society (i.e. the live in relationships) which is certainly not any SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE as they have named it.
So if you are just interested in having a good time in the theater, laughing at all the unjustified & highly unrealistic kind of scenes, wherein everyone is behaving in a confused or weird manner, then SDR might interest you a lot since it is exactly packaged to provide the same. It has some great intimate kisses, many hilarious dialogues in a local lingo and some good performances too. But in case you are interested in watching an exceptional love story with a deep emotional base supported by a realistic logic then you might get disappointed like myself as the end credits start rolling.
Having said that, the smart thing about the film is, that it actually never makes you feel the absurdity till the last few minutes. And its only when the film is over, that you are forced to think "Yaar, Yeh Hua Kya?", followed by more questions about the entire storyline which have no logical answers at all in the film itself. For instance, a young man runs away from his marriage's mandap just before the "Jai-mala" and knowing it, the immensely beautiful bride takes it very casually and asks for a Thanda instead! Now there are many more similar sequences in the film which certainly have no realistic reasoning behind them, not expected from a project written by Jaideep Sahni. But maybe this time the writer and his director were more interested in making the people laugh on these absurdities only, quite intentionally for a change.
Anyway, though its basic plot is just the same (of confused partners), the film is still presented in a highly likable manner and I too enjoyed it a lot in its initial hour. But towards the final half an hour, the interest was all lost, leading to an utterly confused conclusion, supported by no reason at all. Actually SDR keeps progressing at a very calm pace without any peaks of excitement in the script. Yet it majorly keeps you entertained because of the loving chemistry between its three charming characters and their natural performances. As a strong merit, there are no dull moments in the film at all with many hilarious dialogues in its initial 90 minutes. Still at times one might think that there is too much talking going on instead of Pure Romance in a repetitive mode.
Musically SDR has some good tracks but also has a signature tune in the background music exactly similar to the notes of "Kiklee Kaleer Di" from LUV SHUV TE CHICKEN KHURANA. Thankfully the songs don't come into the narration abruptly, which is another saving grace of the film and Cinematography also provides a good support capturing the local feel brilliantly.
In performances, Sushant Singh is remarkably natural and impresses once again post KAI PO CHE!. He is fresh in looks and gets some great lines to woo the audience too.Parineeti Chopra is fine with another of her 'bindaas, spontaneous' performance playing the bold & beautiful. She is no doubt good but now needs to move on, away from her typical 'Carefree' persona displaying some different acting skills in her next projects. Rishi Kapoor is lovable as usual and Rajesh Sharma does it well once again. But the surprise element in the film is Vaani Kapoor who looks stunningly gorgeous and amazingly confident in her very first performance on screen and could have made much more impact with a better role written for her (having some logical reasoning).
To sum it up, SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE is a young film at heart particularly aiming at the youngsters with many light, entertaining moments to win over them smartly (overstepping the Indian traditional setting of a marriage). It could have been a great film, if it had a more logical conclusion given to the 3 confused characters in the final reels. But in the present form, it has a winning build-up, the impact of which gets more or less ruined by a weird and irritating climax quite surprisingly.
