Goofy & charming

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Tanu Weds Manu is often funny, often sweet, but also, in the end, a contrived love story that is half-an-hour too long. The love that I speak of here involves one idiot girl, one inert boy and one illusion: We must believe that when an NRI engineer-doctor arrives in Delhi, is taken by train to Kanpur to check out prospective brides, love can bite his ample behind the moment he sets eyes on the first girl in the line-up, even though she’s wasted on a suicidal concoction and is half-hidden under a ghunghat.

If you are comfortable with this, and a few other fabrications, Tanu Weds Manu is going to be a happy ride. I was okay with it. I believe in love. No matter how stupid, how implausible.

She is Tanu (Kangana Ranaut), the sort of girl who blusters her way through life; the sort of girl who will give her man a hickey just because. He is Manu (R. Madhavan), the sort of guy who can go through an entire workday invisible to his colleagues; the sort of guy who, if he were to ever get a hickey, would hide it under a hand-knitted muffler and then blush thinking about it. Cute, both.

The twain meet. Actually, he meets her. She passed out long before he clicks and saves her picture on his phone, plants a quick kiss and announces, “Mujhe ladki pasand hai”. Both sets of parents are delighted and set off in a train, singing an adorable song, to thank god. En route, Tanu beckons Manu, reveal her “Awasthi” tattoo. She loves another, so Manu must say no to marriage. He flinches, agrees. Wedding is off. Tanu returns to Kanpur, and Manu is back on the circuit, looking for a bride, but thinking of Tanu. On one such occasion, in Lucknow, Manu meets a rather interesting character — Raja (Jimmy Shergill). We are not supposed to know what his relevance to the story is, but we figure.

Manu’s immensely interesting friend-or-flunky (we are not sure) Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal) doesn’t like this pining business, so he drags Manu to their friend Jassi’s (Eijaz Khan) wedding in Punjab. Dhols blare when they land in Kapurthala, but go a little awry when Manu spots Tanu swaggering behind Jassi’s bride, Payal (Swara Bhaskar). Manu misses a beat. Tanu notices, smiles.

Jassi and Payal’s wedding is underway, and there are occasions when the best man and the bridesmaid are thrown together, to get chores done, to dance and sing. Manu tries to steer clear of her space, but Tanu constantly barges into his. She senses his love, but smokes weed and jokes about it with Payal who disapproves of Tanu’s flaky ways and her awara boyfriend.

Tanu’s boyfriend arrives, things get complicated, but soon Tanu gets into a virgin-white salwar-suit and has her epiphany moment we've all been waiting for. The film hurtles towards a climax that starts off in a very interesting way but ties itself in knots trying to deliver the bride and groom to the mandap.

Anand L. Rai’s Tanu Weds Manu is goofy but has a charming emotional connect. Through the film's outcome is known, is inevitable,the storytakes interesting turns to keep us engaged

The best part about Tanu Weds Manu is its fondness for small towns, old Hindi film songs, joint families, and that it is desperate for a shubh vivaah. The film has a keen ear for quirky ambient banter and its dialogues are funny. Most of the film has been shot on-location and its camera very nicely captures the mood and flavour of the towns the film visits — often from oped-brick, incomplete rooftops. Tanu Weds Manu’s background score is fabulous and shaadi-friendly.

The film’s other strength lies in its convincing and compelling supporting characters. Jassi is the quintessential Sardar best friend — warm, woolly and mental; Payal is more than an ingénue. She talks sense, has a personality and mind of her own, and shouts at Tanu for us.

Swara Bhaskar is pitch-perfect and takes her role of second fiddle to an interesting level. Eijaz Khan has one cute scene and is efficient.

Though the film forgets to tell us who exactly Pappi is, he is the film’s most interesting character. Pappi is the prop on whom Manu rests. If it weren’t for Pappi we won’t know what Manu feels and won’t bother to find out. Deepak Dobriyal’s Pappi is a master act. He has fabulous lines and is the endearing busybody we all want at all weddings.

Jimmy Shergill plays a cliché but is good. I mean, very good.

Where Rai falters is in his main characters. They are cute but forged. Manu, the lonely doctor from London, is monochromatic; and Tanu, a “bhatakti aatma”, is psychedelic. As opposites they attract, but as individuals they repel. Manu’s niceness lies in being passive and this often paralyses the film. Tanu hangs a Che Guevara poster in her room but is ditzy. The way she walks, talks, she probably thinks “Che” is a creative creation of Archies Posters.

Madhavan inhabits Manu with restrain. His misery has dignity and is therefore touching. But Madhavan must work-off those pointy man-boobs. They are distracting.

Kangana is spunky and slips into supercilious Tanu mode easily. But the money Ms Ranaut has spent on gifting herself a pout would have been better spent on speech lessons. She sounds really bad.