So glad that Badrinath Ki Dulhania is being made! And that the first trailer makes it seem like it will be yet another riff on DDLJ, but with a different focus from Humpty Sharma.
I haven’t done a real frame by frame look at this trailer. I just watched it real quick before I left for work. So forgive me if I missed something small and important, all I can talk about is the general feel of it.
In my epic DDLJ discussion, I talk about how the first third of the film is Kajol’s character essentially miss-understanding Shahrukh’s. How the audience sees him as a “player” and all that, because that is how Kajol sees him. But if you watch what he is actually doing and saying, he’s just being a normal healthy young man. And in fact, the fault is on Kajol’s side, for constantly insulting him by assuming he is disrespecting her, instead of seeing that he is just treating her as an equal.
And that’s the feeling that this trailer evokes for me. In a different way, with different modern characters in a different place and all of that, but the same idea of him struggling with her lack of trust.
DDLJ is such a rich story. In Humpty Sharma, they focused in on the conflict of what it means for a daughter to choice to run away from her family, and how wonderful it is for the boy to understand that struggle and try to work with it instead of around it. Sure, the basic structure of “engaged girl goes on a trip and is thrown together with fast talking flirty boy, they fall in love and he lands up at her wedding to try to stop it” is the same. But there was never really a moment when Alia distrusted Varun, or even disliked him. They were friends right from the start.
But based on this trailer, it looks like we will get the full DDLJ experience of a guy who starts chasing a girl right from the beginning, and a girl who sees him as just a flirt and is therefore kind of casually cruel to him. With the twist of, unlike in DDLJ where Shahrukh himself didn’t even know he saw Kajol as more than just another girl until far into the film, Badrinath knows right away that this girl is special and he doesn’t want to just flirt with her. But Alia doesn’t trust him, and therefore keeps breaking his heart. Until, slowly, as they are thrown together while traveling (those are traveling shots I saw, right?) she comes to love him.
The thing I am really excited about is that line of “I love him but I don’t respect him and he doesn’t respect me.” That is something completely new! In both Humpty and DDLJ, the respect came first, and then the love. It was getting to know each other as mature complex people who were trying to do the right thing that made them fall in love with each other.
So maybe, just throwing this out there, but maybe the whole wedding sequence in the second half will be less about him proving his worth and abilities to “Babuji” and more about proving them to Alia?
dontcallitbollywood 
I have seen this trailer more than five times already! I can’t wait for March 10!
I think Badrinath Ki Dulhania is more than just another riff off of DDLJ. I also think this movie is going to be a bit more serious than Humpty Sharma. It seems like Badri is more impulsive, short-tempered compared to Humpty. If you notice closely, there is a shot at 2:36 where it looks like Badri is choking Vaidehi and a few shots later, he’s throwing glass at the floor near her. I also think that there will be some sort of time lapse after which the Singapore portion of the movie will take place. I’m really curious to see how these two people go from Jhansi all the way to Singapore.
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I’m so excited! It really does seem to have a more serious tone than Humpty Sharma- which I hope is the case. I enjoyed Humpty Sharma but wouldn’t want to see exactly the same style of film and characters again. I like the idea that, in this one, Badrinath will have to convince Alia’s character instead of the Father. Humpty wore its love and reverence for DDLJ on its sleeve. This film should take the “franchise” in its own unique direction. The potential for great songs and dances is definitely there as well. I’m very intrigued. It looks great!
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I hope it does still have some sort of reference to DDLJ. I find it more challenging and interesting for them to keep combating what a classic means in a new age. Anyone can invent something completely new, but taking something old and adding a new idea or a new value to it, that’s a lot harder.
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This is what Varun said about Badrinath a couple of months ago when they were still shooting for the film:
“Badrinath Ki Dulhania is not a sequel but a second installment. It’s about Badrinath from Jhansi and what happens in his world. It’s a bit more grown up than HSKD. It gets dark with twists and turns, which people won’t expect in a Dharma movie. Director Shashank Khaitan is from theatre. So he insisted on rehearsals and workshops for Alia Bhatt and me.”
This makes me really excited! Also Varun said that he will try to make sure that there is some kind of message in every film he does in the future. He said this sometime after Dishoom came out, so I feel like maybe there is supposed to be some kind of message in BKD. Also, Karan Johar mentioned at the trailer launch that there will be a third installment to the franchise!
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All of this is wonderful news! And don’t you kind of wonder if Dishoom was just so light weight it kind of made Varun sick of such fluff? Kind of like how you really want to eat vegetables after having too much ice cream? Or the old smoking cure of smoking a whole pack at once?
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One thing I’ve learnt over the years of following Varun is to never take his statements about his films too seriously. Varun is really good at promoting his films and after my experience with Dilwale and Dishoom, I’ve learnt not to get too excited about what he says 🙂 Based on this, I think that BKD will be darker than a typical dharma film but nothing more than that. I think a good comparison to BKD would be Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani in that it’s a fun, colorful rom-com but at the same time much deeper than what it looks like from the outside.
I don’t know if Varun was sick of the fluff but I kind of wish he was. I am ready for him to do something away from the commercial space again. There were rumors recently that he signed Shoojit Sircar’s next movie but so far he hasn’t confirmed anything other than Judwaa 2.
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I was thinking of YJHD too, but more because of your comment about the possibility of a time jump. That would be really interesting, if it was more like YJHD where they had big drama in their youth, and then bumped into each other again years later.
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 10:29 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think that it could be a possibility that there is a time jump similar to YJHD. That would make a lot of sense based on what I’ve noticed in the trailer. I can’t wait for more promos to come out! Right now, BKD is the movie that I am waiting for the most this year!
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Ooo, a time lapse is an interesting idea! It might explain how they go from enemies to friends and then back to sort of angry exes again.
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