REVIEW: Tanu Weds Manu

 NO MORE WEDDINGS PLEASE

She smokes, drinks, abuses and changes boyfriends every week. She may be from Kanpur, but having studied in Delhi, she's acquired all these staples of the modern Indian girl. Or so the director of Tanu Weds Manu will have you believe. If she's rebellious and foul-mouthed, it doesn't matter that there's nothing more to her personality. That even if she's educated, she never puts it to any use. Because if she's single at the beginning of the film, she'll definitely get hitched by the end, and in all probability, 'tamed' too. What else does a young woman need in life anyway?

Her parents are embarrassed about her, but hell, they must still try and get her married somehow -- for there really isn't a better antidote to aberrant behaviour. If it means lying to prospective grooms and projecting their girl as the 'susheel' UP girl she clearly isn't, so be it -- it's an acceptable ruse in Indian culture. The man she eventually marries, is her polar opposite -- a quiet, well-behaved professional and NRI to boot, who falls for this wayward girl at first sight (why, why?) and domesticates her by the by. But before that she's in love with a road contractor who prefers brute force to civilized behaviour. In the world of Bollywood cliches, unruly girls are naturally attracted to such brainless men. 

Both Tanu (Kangna Ranaut) and Manu (R Madhavan) lack defining characteristics -- they function as the lazy stereotypes Hindi cinema deals in as a matter of routine. To pad up the film's half-cooked script there is a big Punjabi wedding in Kapurthala, an almost-wedding in a registrar's office and finally, the actual wedding of Tanu and Manu, which, we knew from frame one, was preordained. 

The big fat North Indian wedding has already been beaten to death through countless permutations, all eventually leading up to holy matrimony, usually with the consent and blessings of the great Indian family. Whether it's the big-budget NRI version or the small-budget, small-town one, the formula barely shifts an inch. I mean, really. Now that Mumbai and Delhi are no longer exciting enough, we get to see Kanpur and Lucknow and Kapurthala instead. So there's some interesting local architecture and dialects on display.

There's also Deepak Dobriyal as Manu's man Friday-cum-friend Pappi who infuses this lifeless film with brief moments of spark. He speaks the best lines, works himself into a likable character and fortunately, gets enough screen time to at least prevent you from dozing off. But in order to enjoy his performance, you must be prepared to put up with Kangna Ranaut.

And that involves a serious strain on the nerves.