Phillauri Movie Review: Anushka-Diljit's spirited show is mediocre but boy, Suraj Sharma is a treat!

It's dangerous to have a widely loved trailer; it piques your curiosity and then the material has to match the promise it made. Phillauri for us was a victim of our expectations. The film is all of those things it claimed to be - rustic, earthen, entertaining but it's also equal measures of exhausting, horridly slow and sometimes too childish for liking. But there's nothing unwatchable about it. Phillauri makes your heart wrestle with reason as it strives to put a smile on your face. Even in its most ridiculous bits, you cannot question the film's intent. There is a certain honesty with which director Anshai Lal and Anvita Dutt have plotted the tale, peppering it with cheeky humor.

Adding flavor to the palette is the fantastic casting of Suraj Sharma - the boy from Life of Pi and Homeland, who finds his funny bone Bollywood ishtyle. As the perplexed groom, faced with cold feet, he is infallible. So is Anushka Sharma - effortlessly herself, unapologetically funny and her sharp style adds heft to the narrative. Which brings us to Diljit Dosanjh, the dimpled Surd who can make many women go weak in their knees. The casting saves Phillauri even in the film's most stretched parts.

The first half is entirely invested in tempering the story with the right tones. The first time we see Kanan, he is having a nightmare about his impending shaadi to his childhood sweetheart. You might wonder why? Lal and Dutt conveniently explain it to us in a line that he is still looking for himself. Whether he finds himself or not, is never established till the last scene. The bhaari Manglik boy is made to marry a tree before his bride



and enters Shashi, the ghost who once lived in that tree but is now stuck with the Punjabi brethren of Kanan and Anu. There are stock characters like the cool Biji who drinks at 9 am, reminding you of the daadi in Vicky Donor, but to no effect in this case. There is an unnecessary sodomy suggestive funny scene which seems rather out of place. But what really plays a spoilsport here is the past cutting into the present abruptly. The intertwined stories shift in the most random ways holding you back from putting your heart into either of them. Of course, Anushka and Diljit manage to captivate slightly more given the setting and the depth of their onscreen romance, but there is not a hint of any evidently palpable chemistry between the two. The same problem exists between Suraj and Mehreen Pirazada, who are individually standout but hardly a whole, together.

The plot in the second half absolutely wears thin. The backstories are flimsy and hurriedly done. The climax is a wretch, and frankly a tad too predictable for anyone remotely well acquainted with history or logic. The underwritten love stories never realize their full potential and Phillauri treads down the familiar half-baked Bollywood path. What, however, stays consistently arresting is the film's music which is every bit worth cherishing. With some better writing and some tight editing, the makers could've whipped up a Chamatkar. This isn't half as novel, earnest or memorable. If idle, take that trip to the nearby multiplex, but make it about the caramel popcorn more than the ghost bride. She doesn't have the menace, charm or intention to haunt you.