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Movie Review: Veere Di Wedding (2018)
3.5 Stars (out of 4)
Buy the soundtrack at iTunes
Veere Di Wedding ("Friend's Wedding") released to higher expectations than usually precede Bollywood buddy comedies, yet its four female leads rose to the challenge, turning out a warm, relatable, and very funny movie.
Well, relatable if you overlook how obscenely rich the characters are, driving around in cars that cost as much as a house (at least here in the Midwest). The only speaking character who isn't wealthy is a maid who appears in one scene, crying after being beaten by her abusive husband. Her wounds are addressed in a couple of lines before she's forced to participate in the excitement of one of the rich friends' upcoming nuptials. It's one of the film's few off moments.
The friend getting married is Kalindi (Kareena Kapoor Khan), one of a quartet of lifelong buds that includes stuffy lawyer Avni (Sonam Kapoor Ahuja), stay-at-home mom Meera (Shikha Talsania), and drunkard Sakshi (Swara Bhaskar). Reuniting in Delhi for the wedding gives the women a chance to cut loose, but also resurfaces buried conflicts, primarily between the adult children and their parents.
There isn't really a villain in Veere Di Wedding. The conflict is driven by complicated family dynamics, a boundless well that keeps the plot moving and gives everyone in the audience something to identify with. Kalindi became estranged from her father (Anjum Rajabali) following her mother's death. Avni's mom (Neena Gupta) is desperate for her daughter to wed. Meera married a white man named John (Edward Sonnenblick) against her dad's wishes. There's tension in Sakshi's household over demise of her short-lived marriage.
The family of Kalindi's fiance, Rishabh Malhotra (Sumeet Vyas), is the most colorful source of drama, often literally so. Eager to fill the void left by Kalindi's mother, Rishabh's dad (Manoj Pahwa), mom (Ayesha Raza), and aunt (Alka Kaushal) take over the wedding planning, their tacky, kaleidoscopic taste in decor and attire sending Kalindi into a daze. Kapoor Khan's glazed expressions as they parade garish garment choices in front of her are hilarious.
Yet Veere Di Wedding is careful not to make too much fun of the Malhotra family. Kalindi herself says that she knows how important the pomp and circumstance are to Rishabh's family, rejecting Rishabh's offer to tell his family to back off.
That's what's amazing about this movie: the characters are so nice. The four friends will do anything for one another. Rishabh and Meera's husband John are loyal and supportive partners, as are Kalindi's uncle Cookie (Vivek Mushran) and his boyfriend Keshav (Sukesh Arora). Conflict is borne from hurt feelings and stubborn grudges, not from any inherent malice. The resolution to a subplot involving Kalindi's well-intentioned stepmother Paromita (Ekavali Khanna) is especially touching.
That good nature makes Veere Di Wedding a joy to watch. Hype over the film's bawdy language and (tame) masturbation scene is overblown. It's important that female movie characters be given as wide a range to inhabit as male characters, and Veere Di Wedding does so in an uplifting, unthreatening way. It's a welcome change to see topics such as sexual compatibility and the changes that happen to a woman's body following childbirth discussed from a female perspective in a mainstream Bollywood film. Farah Khan's choreography of the song "Tareefan" — in which white men are treated as eye candy instead of white women — is noteworthy, too.
What gives Veere Di Wedding lasting appeal beyond its present cultural significance is that it really is charming, thanks to the performances by the lead quartet. Kalindi's bewilderment in the face of her in-laws stands in contrast to Avni's stuffiness, which is at odds with Sakshi's constant insobriety. Even maternal Meera goes wild on the dance floor. Kapoor Khan, Kapoor Ahuja, Bhaskar, and Talsania each bring something different to the table, and their efforts combine to make a movie that's a real treat.
Veere Di Wedding at Wikipedia
Veere Di Wedding at IMDb
The Indian Express: Farah Khan on choreographing "Tareefan"
This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged 2018, 3.5 Stars, Alka Kaushal, Anjum Rajabali, Ayesha Raza, Bollywood, Edward Sonnenblick, Ekavali Khanna, Farah Khan, Hindi, Indian, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Manoj Pahwa, Movie Review, Neena Gupta, Shikha Talsania, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Sukesh Arora, Sumeet Vyas, Swara Bhaskar, Tareefan, Veere Di Wedding, Vivek Mushran on June 14, 2018 by Kathy.
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8 thoughts on "Movie Review: Veere Di Wedding (2018)"
Sweta June 18, 2018 at 12:58 pm
Love this review and couldn't agree more! Well worth the wait – and you're so right that the masturbation scene that caused the hullabaloo was laughably tame. It was also 100% less raunchy than half the stuff male heroes get up to even in family films. #Doublestandards
Also LOVVEE that you called out the scene with the maid. It felt super insensitive to me. I generally wish the characters were less obscenely rich tho. It got very irritating to hear them talk "she can't sleep without spending her father's money (on luxury holidays)" blah blah. Add in the palatial houses and super cars and it was too much for me!
Kathy Post author June 19, 2018 at 7:07 pm
Thanks, Sweta! The characters' degree of wealth was off the charts! I mean, I know rich people have problems too, but money solves a lot of problems. 😉
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