Movie Review: ��Shaadi Ke Side Effects�۪
Produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and Pritish Nandy Communications, ��Shaadi Ke Side Effects�۪, starring Farhan Akhtar and Vidya Balan, seemed to hold great promise in its theatrical trailers with the pairing complimenting each other in scenes shot against the backdrop of Australia. The film was described as showing exactly what happens after marriage and the kids come along and reality sets in. In the trailers, comedic moments were shown with Akhtar�۪s character being shown as the frustrated husband while Balan obsesses and coos over her first born child. Director Saket Chaudhary is known for his first film ��Pyaar Ke Side Effects�۪ (2006) which was an out and out comedy and had the audience in stitches, so it would be interesting to see what ��Shaadi Ke Side Effects�۪ has in store for its eager audience.
Siddharth Roy (Akhtar) also known as Sid and Trisha Mallik (Balan) are a happily married couple, enjoying spending their time together and having all sorts of adventures. All of this comes to a halt when Trisha becomes pregnant with their first born and dedicates her life to her newborn daughter, putting her marriage very much on the back burner. Sid, feeling rejected by his wife, looks to his happily married with kids, brother-in-law (Ram Kapoor) for his marital secret, who advises him that taking a couple of days away from his family each month will improve his quality of life. So Sid starts living a double life, a family man at home, whilst partying the night away, single man outside. In the meantime, Trisha becomes more wrapped in her home life and after a few melodramatic between the pair, they both realise that they are starting to live separate lives.
This film is almost written in two halves. The first half is very much on the comedic side with some laugh out loud moments and the second half is the more serious, with the couple very much on the point of separation. The entire film is narrated by Akhtar�۪s character Sid, and the film is very much biased towards his life and his experiences post-marriage. Sid is completely insensitive towards Trisha�۪s challenges turning from a career woman to a stay at home mum, and she largely faces it alone. Instead the audience is forced to sympathise with Sid who misses the excitement in his relationship with his life and heads off to seek it elsewhere. In stark contrast, Balan�۪s character comes across as a nag and insufferable wife who does not care about her husband�۪s feelings, despite having so much on her plate with first time motherhood.
Akhtar brings Sid�۪s character to life and if it wasn�۪t for him, then the audience really would not care less. He looks youthful on screen and has got impeccable comedic timing, making even the most over dramatic of scenes look easy and in tune with his character. However, he does look incredibly uncomfortable doing choreographed dances but even these can be passed off as him still being in character. Balan�۪s character does her no favours at all, it is sad to see someone with so much acting talent reduced to this role. The wardrobe given to her doesn�۪t compliment her in any sense of the word and the few scenes she is given, are just all about her moaning or saying some really ridiculous lines of dialogue. The supporting cast with the likes of Rati Agnihotri and Ram Kapoor are competent but again, not of much significance in the story. The most random of characters is Ila Arun who plays Aunty as you can never tell if she is the ideal nanny or the nanny from hell.
This film has flickers of comedic moments but to be honest, the rest of it is a set of ridiculous twists and turn which manage to lose the interest of the audience. The story line is a just one long catalogue of unhappiness that a married couple goes through and you don�۪t ever really get to see the light at the end of the tunnel ��which you always find yourself hoping for in such a film.
BizAsia Showbiz Rating: 2/5
