Movie Review : Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge

[amazon_link id=”B005WYXGMI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : 3.5/5
Genre : Romance
Year : 2011
Running time : 1 hour 45 minutes
Director : Nupur Asthana
Cast : Saqib Saleem, Saba Azaad, Nishant Dahiya, Tara D’Souza, Mita Vashisht
Kid rating : PG-13

An almost teeny-bopper romance in the age of Facebook – that just about sums up this movie. Except it’s not half as bad as it sounds. When I heard the title, I did the lord-have-mercy eye-roll, anticipating two hours of watching inane college-going brats being brainless and drooling in the sappy-oh-cho-chweet-but-oh-so-ewww trappings of desi-modern love. Ah, but what a surprise! They are smug and silly, but not brainless or boring. Interesting youngsters with well-etched personalities and minds of their own – now this I can handle!

The love story such as it is, is probably inspired from the Annals of Stupidity, but bear with me – it gets better. Vishal Bhatt(Salim) and Preity Sen(Saba) study in the same college, but dislike each other. Vishal is interested in hooking up with good-looking Malvika Kelkar (D’Souza) and Preity thinks college rocker/lead singer, Rahul Sareen (Dahiya) is cute. Now Vishal is friends with Rahul, and Preity and Malavika live together with Preity’s single mother Arunima (Malavika’s parents live abroad). When Vishal realises that Malvika is a Facebook friend of Rahul’s he uses Rahul’s facebook account to send her messages, posing as Rahul. And when Preity realises that Rahul is a facebook friend of Malavika’s she uses Malavika’s account to send him messages, posing as Malavika. Each is entranced with the other’s online personality, while disdaining the other in the real world.

When Vishal and Preity are both assigned to work on the same project for the 25th Anniversary of their College, they try to dissuade the other from pitching in, but neither will back out. The project entails creating a documentary about ex-students who fell in love and got hitched for life (apparently college life has gotten way more interesting than when I was in it). As Vishal and Preity begin to work together, they begin to tolerate each other much better. Outside of college, Vishal hangs out with Rahul in the hope of meeting Malvika, and Preity prods Malvika into meeting up with Rahul in the hopes of befriending him. When the foursome do party together, sparks do fly, but in surprising directions!

This film is a decent watch. When the leads are as young as this (21 year olds in this film), one does expect some silliness, and yes there is some. However, the college kids in this movie, unlike other disasters I’ve watched actually have minds of their own. Both Preity and Vishal have their own interests – she loves photography and he is a computer whiz. They are strong personalities in their own right, complete with witty one-liners and snarky barbs. It was fun watching them interact on screen, because these characters never pretended to be more than just plain goofy young adults figuring out the world – they actually had believable personalities.

The film is set in teeny-bopper locales – college, disco, bar. Asthana brings in energy and a general atmosphere of youthfulness without making it teeth-grittingly sappy. I liked the fact that the girls in this film were not demure wall-flowers. Direction is decent, acting is good, dialogues are snappy, and the music is beautiful. I quite liked “Baatein Shuru”, “Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh”, and “Choo Le”.

This one brims with verve and personality – recommended.

Kidwise : Fairly clean; no vulgarity/innuendo. Short clothes, MMS scandals, drinking and necking are present, also some liplocks. Should be safe for the 13+ crowd.