Behen Hogi Teri Review: a RomCom that lacks Romance and Comedy

Movie: Behen Hogi Teri

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shruti Haasan, Herry Tangiri, Darshan Jariwala, Ninad Kamat

Director: Ajay Pannalal

Producer: OddBoll Motion Pictures

Behen Hogi Teri is a movie which is set in a world which is juvenile, at best. Here, Gully Cricket is still the national sport, guys are seen playing hide-and-seek with women on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan and men in their mid 2-‘s are still seen taking pocket money from home.

Here, Rajkummar Rao’s character Gattu is a teenage boy who is stuck in the body of a man and lives off his pocket money without the slightest guilt of not having a job. In spite of all such antics, he somehow manages to win over Binny (Shruti Haasan) who he has loved all his life. Things become twisted when Binny gets spotted by Gattu’s father (played by Darshan Jariwala) while she was on her way home with Gattu’s close friend, Bhura. Post this, Jariwala begins to spread rumors about the secret affair between Binny and Bhura. Gattu is totally out of consideration as they consider Gattu and Binny to be Rakhi siblings.

The story is laced with causal sexism and shows the age-old patriarchy without a single attempt to combat them. So when a character suggests that he’d rather bury his sister alive than marry her off for love, you want someone to speak up against him; when another character shames Binny for hanging out with boys, you want to hear a smart retort. But, there is NONE of it, which is a very disheartening experience.

The writing has its moments where it shows some potential, which could have been well attained if there were a few real comical moments ingrained in them. Shruti goes to prove that she is a terrible miscast and we are beginning to believe that the only reason she was given the part was that she was supposed to look pretty enough to have men fight for her. She’s an epic fail in the acting department, as you can clearly see her trying hard even during a scene when she was supposed to shed a few tears.

Rajkummar, however, is somewhat the only saving grace of this film as his acting looks natural and his relationship with his friends look authentic. At points, it seems like the writers understood that they did not really emphasize on the intensity of the situations, so they attempted to convey that message with progressively increasing background music.

Long story short, the movie is shot very casually with little to no dexterity in camera use. If you want to watch the film, wait for it to come on TV. Trust us, it’s not at all worth your hard-earned money.