So, Chetan Bhagat strikes again, or should we say, his coffee-table romance makes its way to the celluloid again. Yes, we are talking about Half Girlfriend, Bhagat’s 2014-book which has been made into a film of the same name, directed by Mohit Suri of Aashiqui 2 and Hamari Adhoori Kahani fame.
It is assumed that everyone has read Half Girlfriend before, but for those who steer clear of the typical clichés that are these books, the story traces the life of Madhav Jha (played by Arjun Kapoor), a small-town rustic boy from Bihar, who, again very typically, cannot speak good English. He comes to Delhi to study at a famous college and falls in love, or should we say, becomes obsessed, with his rich and nauseatingly girly classmate Riya Somani (played by Shraddha Kapoor).
Riya has been typically depicted as the expensive car-riding and luxury-bag totting rich girl who, for no apparent reason, keeps getting drenched in the rain, disregarding her oh-so-expensive clothes and shoes. I mean come on! We all love rains but not to the extent where we will sacrifice our Louis Vuittons and Jimmy Choos!
Madhav’s college buddy Shailesh is played by Vikrant Massey (great performance, by the way).
This buddy plays the obvious yet true-to-the-word friend to Madhav, warning him against going ahead with the one-way street and expecting the British-import to fall in love with him. But the Raanjhaa in Madhav talks no notice, wtasoever.
Riya, however, is commitment-phobic and takes the (again very typical) stance of “more-than-a-friend, less-than-a-girlfreind”, which she seems to swear by. After college, Riya and Madhav’s paths cross after two years, when he tracks Riya to New York from Bihar, even dragging Bill Gates into his borderline-stalking!
For a guy hailing from a small-town of Bihar, Arjun Kapoor is a little too suave to be able to pull-off Madhav. Shraddha Kapoor looks good in almost the whole film. The typical Bollywood hero stance is quite evident in the film, where Arjun Kapoor is too expressive of his emotions. The songs of the film are wonderful and I am sure people have been binging on “Phir bhi tumko chahunga” for a long time now. Mohit Suri sure knows how to create drama and keep us going with it. The second-half kin of loses touch, though.
So, is it Half Girlfriend for you this weekend?
