What Is the Story About?
Karan, who is head over heels in love with his childhood sweetheart Natasha, forcibly marries Anjali to fulfil his father’s last wish. While Anjali gives it all to her marriage, limiting her life to her partner and domestic interests, a disoriented Karan reunites with Natasha soon. The marriage takes a turn for the worse when Anjali’s ex Vinod enters their lives. Where’s the tale headed?
Performances?
Jagat Singh, who has a reasonably respectful filmography, comprising films like Lipstick Under My Burkha, Satyagraha, Chakravyuh and Raajneeti, struggles to shoulder a marriage drama that would’ve been dated even two decades earlier. One only feels for Diljott to be handed over a part as preposterous as Anjali and she stands like a piece of decked-up furniture not making any effort to emote or strain her acting muscle.
As the third and the fourth wheels in the marriage (pun intended), Manmeet Kaur and Ronit Kapill have nothing much to do but sacrifice their partners. Experienced hands like Brijendra Kala, Ravi Jhankal, Murli Sharma and Shruti Panwar are royally wasted.
Analysis
Jagat Singh, the writer, director and lead actor of Krispy Rishtey, clearly has no idea of the target audience he’s making the film for. His latest marriage drama is cut from the same cloth as Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and scores of Rajshri films over the decades. The aesthetic is primarily derived from garish television soaps – where the heroine has the personality of a mannequin.
Krispy Rishtey is a terrible retelling of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam with minor tweaks. For a change, both the leads marry against their interests. While the girl adapts to the newer norm quickly, surrendering to her ‘Pati Parameshwar,’ the heartbroken boy returns to his ex, only to realise he prefers his wife instead. By then, the wife’s ex enters their lives and further complicates their mess.
The girl, Anjali, is the complete ‘bechaari’ and the eternal punching bag for Karan. He relegates her to the sidelines when she literally worships him, accepting all his missteps with grace. Anjali helplessly waits for her husband to reform. Just when she loses patience and strives to move on, a perennially melodramatic Karan tries to win her over again. Please, give her a break.
There’s no identity to the women beyond the men in their lives. A submissive Anjali is either Mrs Karan Singh or Vinod’s ex. Natasha is rebellious and Karan’s ex. While Anjali keeps referring to mythological figures and buys dolls to please her man and salvage her relationship, Natasha wants the marriage to fall apart.
It’s hard to feel an ounce of sympathy for Karan. Firstly, he dumps his longtime girlfriend to marry out of the blue. Instead of working his way out of the marriage/making it work, he jeopardises his wife’s life too. The second half of the film is a perfect recipe for disaster, where Karan projects himself like a modern-day Devdas, a liberal husband who’s getting his wife married again.
Surprisingly, there’s unintentional humour in Karan and Natasha’s ‘wild’ romance, where the girl keeps slapping the guy publicly and the latter demands some respect in the relationship. (Was this meant to be a sweet revenge for Kabir Singh? If yes, that’s a job done well.) Whenever the makers run out of ideas to stretch a wafer-thin plot into a two-hour film, there are songs, so many that the loo-break excuse too can’t work much.
Krispy Rishtey is as meaningless as its title. Unless you’re desperate to watch a doomed marriage between an entitled, worthless man and a spineless woman, you better skip this horrendous assault on the senses.
Music and Other Departments?
While Krispy Rishtey has as many as six composers, most of the songs feel needless in the narrative and add little value to a dated story. Suhas Mahadik does his part in mounting the film with a certain element of class. The film is longer by a good 45 mins – 1 hour and it’s dumbfounding that there was zilch effort from the team to upgrade a tried-and-tested template.
Highlights?
A couple of songs
Drawbacks?
Outdated story
Terrible performances
Poor song placement
Lengthy runtime (133 min for a wafer-thin plot)
Did I Enjoy It?
Not at all
Will You Recommend It?
Not even to your worst enemy
Krispy Rishtey Movie Review by Binged Bureau