Karan Johar, one of the producers of Nadaaniyan, has often been quite open about nepotism. His film, his production house, his rules. Johar can cast anyone he wants with his money and is unapologetic about his decisions. Good for him, except that his actions always seem to carry a performative streak, as if each word and each gesture is meant to make us see him as some sort of courageous personality/filmmaker. Johar is that social media account that craves likes and comments, and for such reactions, he bent over backward to please critics with My Name Is Khan. With Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Johar tried to please the woke Twitter crowd, and his exertions yielded wild enthusiasm from the target audience. What about Nadaaniyan? This latest teen rom-com from Dharmatic Entertainment is a vehicle that launches Ibrahim Ali Khan (he almost looks like a de-aged Saif Ali Khan). This automatically means that there will be some backlash or criticism from people who are contemptuous of the "easy lives of these rich children." Johar might not have directed Nadaaniyan, but you feel his presence in Pia's (Kapoor) voiceover that judges us for judging her on the basis of her family's wealth.
One can imagine Johar and Kapoor standing up to all those online trolls who were mocking Nadaaniyan after just seeing its trailer. But as mentioned earlier, whatever Johar does, it feels overly calculated for acclaim and applause. Hence, the dialogue sounds like a statement manufactured by a team of PR professionals to generate a positive response from the audience. If a company like Dharma really had any faith in its nepo baby actors, it wouldn't have "launched" them through shallow, dim-witted projects. Instead of making empty declarations, something like Nadaaniyan would have actually proved the capabilities of the lead actors. The film, too, suffers from a similar problem. It suggests that Pia can be an excellent lawyer - that she can put forward well-crafted arguments. This is Nadaaniyan's way of saying that give these rich kids a chance, and they will prove their worth. Well, the actors merely manage to express themselves like emojis, and during a debate with an overconfident student (Agasthya Shah), Pia's arguments are muted (the lyrics of a song are prioritized over her words).
Nadaaniyan, in other words, fails to justify its own assertions. Sure, Pia talks about vaccines in front of her father (Suniel Shetty), but we are not convinced by her display of knowledge. This moment would have been believable if Nadaaniyan had actually shown Pia's intelligence through those scenes where she tries to persuade Arjun (Khan) to become her fake boyfriend (he enters when she starts hunting for a "cool, good-looking, smart, romantic" partner. Talk about self-congratulation. Or maybe this is the studio's way of pleasing the real parents and assuring them that their child has talent). Rather than swaying Arjun with her words, Pia is only able to get him on board with cash. But let's ignore this development. See how clumsily Pia handles her friends when they ask her about the "bonfire incident." A girl who can tell you how effectively vaccines can be deployed in the market is only able to come up with such a lame excuse to dodge the bullet? No wonder when Pia proves to her father that she's a smart girl, you feel as if an actor is regurgitating the lines she has digested.
As a romance, Nadaaniyan fumbles because Khan and Kapoor's chemistry never catches fire. Both are busy acting (i.e., trying to look cute) in isolation - they are "proving themselves." I am not asking either Khan or Kapoor to "dramatically" contort their faces to deliver a "heavy performance." But Nadaaniyan keeps them within a comfort zone and reduces them to live-action emoticons. Yes, I know that this is precisely how I described the cast of The Archies and Loveyapa. In my defense, I cannot see these "new actors" with any other lens. These movies present them as cartoon figures living in a hermetically sealed cartoonish world where comedy and drama become superficial buttons that are energetically pushed to elicit the desired response from the audience. However, within this narrow ambition, Nadaaniyan works better than The Archies and Loveyapa. Director Shauna Gautam takes the thin material (Ishita Moitra, Riva Razdan Kapoor, and Jehan Handa are the writers) and triggers a powerfully intense atmosphere where the "aww" and "haww" moments are nicely executed. The one thing that Khan and Kapoor do well is that they deliver cheesy, corny lines with sufficient conviction. Also, the latter seems in perfect sync with this world where she is required to say lines like, "My highlighter is losing its glow." I couldn't help but chuckle.
Nevertheless, older actors like Shetty, Mahima Chaudhry, Jugal Hansraj, and Dia Mirza walk away with our admiration. They give the drama a bite, and depth. Archana Puran Singh made me smile with her delivery of "WTF." What about the newcomers? In one of the scenes, Arjun lifts his shirt and impresses the class with his abs. Well, there are certain "actors" who can only impress their fans with their muscles. It's too early to dismiss Khushi and Ibrahim entirely, but one can surely scoff at these "launch vehicles." So much money is thrown on the screen, yet everything appears so second-rate and bland. For instance, there is no difference between the characters' abode and the school campus. Both look like artificially generated plastic environments. Perhaps the intention is to convey that wealth does not equal good aesthetic judgment, but who am I kidding? Nadaaniyan is not THAT intelligent. I mean, just see the title.
Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times