Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya

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.

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Ulza Jiya is one such movie, which literally depicts an impossible love story in a beautiful effective manner. Truly speaking, the film was a pleasant surprise. One thing I dislike about the movie is that the screenplay in the movie lacks continuity and fails to maintain the momentum established in the first half, the dialogues are well written but not all the jokes land effectively. Still I thoroughly enjoy this movie.

Kriti Sanon impresses with her portrayal of SIFRA, Kriti and Shahid look fresh and cute. The best performance of the work after mm. She is the hero of the film. Shahid Kapoor shines as always. The movie is worth watching once.

Aryan (Shahid Kapoor) is an robotics engineer working for his aunt Urmila (Dimple Kapadia) whose new Innovation is Sifra (Kriti Sanon), a robot. Aryan doesn't want to get married while his entire family wants him to, as expected he falls in love with Sifra. An harmless experiment conducted by Urmila gives Aryan an excuse to continue his own experiment where he introduces Sifra to his family as his lover. What all misfortunes happen when Sifra tries to mingle with the great Indian family, while they prepare for Aryan and Sifra's wedding forms rest of the story.

For a film that tries to look ambitious, it only aims to be a low hanging fruit. Leaving the brain aside, for those 140mins I kept looking for one decently entertaining scene which the film was devoid of. It is not the logic but the emotions that feel forced and largely superficial, leaving the lead actor with an unlikable character, no matter how much he tries to be entertaining. Ofcourse there is a slight glimpse of "fun" in the climax scene and that's about it. The screenplay lacks the fizz to make this rom-com fun and the generic characters get unfunny jokes to mouth as well. Fair warning, the film ends with the note "to be continued" and I wish they had shown the same conviction while scripting this film, so that we could've got a better and watchable film.

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*

Passey Reviews

'Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya' attempts to blend science fiction with romantic comedy, starring Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon. However, the film falls short of expectations, leaving much more to be desired.

The major drawback lies in the narrative predictability. A large portion of the storyline, the first half and bits from the second, is seen in the trailer itself. The central theme of a human falling in love with a robot, feels underexplored and lacks the depth needed to engage the audience.

While Dimple Kapadia and Kriti Sanon shine with their performances, stealing the spotlight with charm, grace, and beauty, the same can't be said for the film as a whole.

Dimple Kapadia, in particular, is a treat to watch due to her charismatic personality. Kriti Sanon takes on the challenging role of a humanoid character, and her portrayal is praiseworthy. The seamless blend of robotic and human elements in her performance is impressive, and she adds a stunning presence to every scene. However, these bright spots are not enough to salvage the film.

Director Amit Joshi's attempt at situational comedy is decent, but falls short, failing to entertain all age groups. Shahid Kapoor, despite his capability to shoulder brilliant rom-coms, is underutilized, leaving fans wanting more from his character.

The screenplay, music, background score, while not outstanding, serve their purpose sufficiently. However, they lack the unique and catchy elements.

The film lands in the realm of average cinema. The predictable plot, underutilization of talent, and the film's overall suitability for the OTT platform make it a miss in theaters. Consider saving this one for a cozy night, on your favourite streaming device.