‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’ Movie Review - Robot in the Family

Written and directed by Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is nothing but a collection of one flat scene after another. Nothing sticks; nothing works. A man dreams he has been married to a robot, a woman flirts with a co-worker, and a man explains to his friend the various scenarios that emerge when one receives a phone call from one's missus. All these incidents are meant to be comical. Yet, you respond to them emotionlessly like a robot. The situation doesn't change much as the film progresses (or maybe a more appropriate word would be regresses?). There are one or two jokes that elicit a chuckle ("Agle janam mohey America hi bhejiyo"). But Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, like malware, mainly corrupts every positive response in your system. You exit from this dull movie as a dull human.

What's the movie about? Go back to that line about a man dreaming that he got married to a robot. He is, believe it or not (I don't), a robotics engineer, Aryan (Shahid Kapoor). His dream, or more appropriately, his nightmare, turns into a sweet dream when he actually falls in love with a robot called Sifra (Kriti Sanon). Where does he meet her? At America, but the USA here looks so cheap, so lifeless that you think Aryan has arrived in front of green screens. And so, boy meets robot, and since he doesn't initially know she is made of 0s and 1s, we are tortured through flirty conversations so painful I almost vowed I wouldn't ever flirt with anyone. Aryan educates Sifra about Hindi slang and tells her that a kiss is referred to as a puppy. After a song and dance sequence, they give each other a puppy. I looked at my watch and realized we were far from the end credits. Where is the fast-forward button when you need it?

If Aryan or his colleagues don't look like an engineer, it's a sign that the movie is not interested in either accuracy or science, for that matter. This itself is not a crime. Movies can be anything they want. They shouldn't always be tethered to realism. Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, however, takes the human-robot love angle to create third-rate jokes and situations. Things happen because someone wrote them, and not a single person on the set raised their hands in objection. The viewer then unfortunately sits through a character's medical emergency, a rapey incident, a police complaint, and a long, undramatic motherboard malfunction.

Since the movie is bland, the actors are bland, the chemistry is bland, and the romance is bland, you try to spice things up by considering alternate paths. Perhaps Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is a family revenge drama because why else would Aryan have introduced Sifra to his parents? He gets all weepy and sad when he initially discovers her true nature. Why would Aryan let his family undergo a similar distressing experience? But the joke's on him. His family is reduced to a couple of reactions. The (ridiculous) climactic events apparently leave no psychological marks on them. The filmmakers are not concerned with their characters. They are only concerned about selling cheap materials.

This cheap material is laden with male fantasies that would fill conservative men with pleasure. Sifra is a pretty Barbie doll who says "yes" to every command. She cleans, cooks, and makes Aryan feel special. She is also a sex doll, always ready to be kissed by Aryan. With a beautiful face and no job, she is the kind of housewife the conservatives prefer to have in their home. They don't look for a strong, flesh-and-blood human. They accept a well-trained servant who listens to her husband - in other words, a robot.

After Ganapath, this is another Kriti Sanon film that makes you go, "People were paid to make this?" It's understandable, though, why Sanon must have chosen this script. Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya spends most of the time admiring the actor and her features. Every character looks at her and is instantly filled with awe. They treat her like a Disney princess. Anyone in a creative business likes to be appreciated. This movie provides an ego massage to Sanon. It puts her on a gilded pedestal and asks everybody on both sides of the screen to adore her.

An actor, towards the end, makes a cameo appearance so that the movie can explicitly state (and answer) the question, "Should you fall in love with a robot or a human?" Even a trite thought like this seems too heavy in a lame, inconsequential story like this. Forget romance, drama, or comedy; based on that promise of a sequel, I would say Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya works best as a scary picture.

Final Score- [3.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times