Shoot, I was gonna be lazy and repost a review, and then I discovered I never actually reviewed this film. Oh well, I can still be kind of lazy, at least I don’t have to rewatch it, I’ve seen it enough to review it fine without a refresher.
This is not a great movie. But boy is it entertaining! Uday Chopra is cute and in glasses, Priyanka has a great haircut and truly ridiculous costumes (I have never worn an overall romper to a business meeting, just saying), and the child actress isn’t bad. Plus, Singapore looks great. And the plot is really silly, but also kind of holds together more than you would expect. Best of all, Uday’s character’s nickname is “Froggy”, which just confirms what I have thought since the dawn of time, Uday Chopra Looks Like a Frog.
It wasn’t a hit when it came out, but I liked it even back then. And as time has gone on, I have come to feel warmer and warmer towards this sweet little movie. We have fewer and fewer nice little love stories, and the few that we get are of lessor and lessor quality. This movie is well-made in terms of costumes, sets, and so on. And the cast too, it wasn’t an all star cast, Priyanka was the biggest name and she wasn’t that big back in 2010. But Dino Morea wasn’t nothing, nor was Uday, and Anupam Kher was there too. There are only a few songs, but they are super catchy. And the plot doesn’t feel rushed, or cut short at the end (the biggest issue with modern rom-coms, it feels like). It’s just a nice solid little movie, and that has become rarer and rare in the romance genre.
It also has an okay message. It’s a beauty-and-the-nerd romance, but there are some nice twists along the way. Our heroine is a single mother, for one thing, that’s new! And not a noble perfect single mother, but a struggling one who makes mistakes. And our nerd hero never gets a real make-over, he’s sweet and kind of cute at the start, but also believably someone who would be overlooked. And that’s how he ends it as well. Plus, while it comes close to a “stalking” romance, it never really crosses that line, it is more about bad timing and misunderstandings.
Our hero is close to his father and concerned with what he thinks, our heroine seems to be estranged from her family but it isn’t a major plot point. Our hero is a genius, but not a saving-the-world kind of genius, just a computer software writer. Oh, and our heroine is concerned with doing well at and progressing in her job! Just lots of stuff that isn’t what you would expect.
And it all ends with an adorable children’s school concert and a song that will be stuck in your head until the end of time. Lots of reasons to watch it!
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It’s a deceptively simple plot. Back in college, Uday had a crush on Priyanka. Years later, he finds out she is working in Singapore, coincidentally for the same company that is stealing Uday’s software. Uday goes to her house to talk to her and she mistakes him for the nanny sent by her agency. Uday ends up taking the job by accident. At the same time he is getting closer to PC by working in her house and caring for her daughter, he is also investigating Dino Morea who stole his software and is selling it to PC’s company. To add to the challenge, Dino Morea is also romancing PC. At the end, Priyanka finds out he has been lying and doesn’t trust him. But it works out because he taught her daughter’s classmates to sing a song about their college romance and PC realizes he is pure of heart and truly loves her, and also that he is probably telling the truth about the software.
Let’s go back to that college time for a bit. Uday has a crush on PC, that’s normal. He is too shy to talk to her, that’s normal too. But he doesn’t stalk her, he isn’t following her around or anything, just watching her as normal college life brings them into the same vicinity. And then, bit important part, he happens to be there to see her (drunk) fall into a lake. He jumps in and saves her and she feels something for him, but then her friends show up and whisk her away. Uday comes to her room the next day to give her flowers but it is too late, her father is taking her out of college and forcing her to get married. Uday leaves the flowers and goes away, PC finds them and wonders where they came from.
The film needs the basic structure of Uday having a crush and PC not remembering him. But it does as much as it can within that structure to show that Uday really is the one PC is supposed to be with. She didn’t notice him until he saved her life, and as soon as he did, she was interested. Even the flowers the next day, she felt something just picking them up. But because she was drunk, and hit her head, and because Uday was too shy to tell his story when he met her again, their romance was difficult and Uday was forced to tricks. The ending is what makes it work of course, as soon as PC sees the school show and understands that Uday was the boy from college, she is all in on him and 100% in love. So Uday was right, PC was meant to be with him and it was just a matter of making sure it worked out.
It would be a better movie if Uday and PC had any kind of real chemistry together, but you can’t have everything. Uday and PC’s daughter have great chemistry, so that is good (she is the one who names him “Froggy”). And Uday is a really great character. Sweet and trusting, but also very very smart. He figures out who stole the software and how to get it back, he figures out how to handle being PC’s nanny (just hire cleaners and cooks), and he figures out how to manouver to make sure Dino isn’t alone with PC. Best of all, he has no moves or schemes to get together with PC. He is just there, ready to have a cup of tea with her and talk honestly about his life.
It would also be great of PC lived up to the unusual nature of her character, but she is good enough. Here we have a wild college girl who was forced into an unhappy marriage, ended up abandoned by both her family and her husband with a daughter to raise, got a job and now is torn between her work responsibilities that keep a roof over their head and her daughter’s desire for her to stay home and be with her. It’s a fascinating character story, we can fill in all the rest how her family never liked her confident personality which is why she went so wild in college. How her father forced her out of college and into marriage with a man who didn’t understand or appreciate the real her. How her rebellion and confidence is what kept her going after her husband left her. Heck, this is Kajol’s backstory in My Name is Khan! Only in MNIK, Kajol put in the layers to her performance that made us feel her hardwon confidence and independence, and the wounds that were still hidden underneath. In this film, we have to just believe this is the case based on what the script is saying. But okay, at least the script is saying that! That’s really interesting, making our heroine still the perfect impossible girl for the hero instead of an object of pity thanks to her daughter and her divorce.
So, yeah! It’s a cute cute movie with a pleasant love story, a likable hero, and PC looking pretty. You should watch it! Even if I am the only person who remembers it came out in 2010 and included it on her 2010 list!
dontcallitbollywood 
Who does PC have good chemistry with? I recognize that isn’t a fully fair question. She had chemistry with SRK in Don 2, and I thought she had a good brother / sister thing going in DDD. But she had that dance in DDD with Anushka, and it was like the two of them were on different planets. It’s like she’s an oil slick that just slides past so many actors, rarely is there an actor that actually makes her stop and stick. Or maybe I just haven’t seen those movies where she sticks with all her costars.
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I feel the same way, and I’ve seen her in a lot of movies. Chemistry is a funny thing, it seems like some actors have it with everybody (Abhishek Bachchan is great in that way) and some of them with almost nobody. Even in the Don movies, it’s all mixed up in the lies and missed connections more than in a sincere connection. Maybe that’s why it works? The characters aren’t supposed to have a real bond? I also love Teri Meri Kahaani, which again is about misunderstandings and things. I feel the same way about Aishwarya Rai, somehow in most films I feel like it is more about her and the camera than her and the other characters. Abhishek can crack that, I love them together onscreen, but it’s rare for me to feel something when she is opposite anyone else.
On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 8:18 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Dola Re Dola…
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Everyone else loves that Aish song, for me it is all about this dumb dumb number with Abhishek. So dumb! So happy!
On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 8:33 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I liked Priyanka in Kaminey, with the good guy Shahid.
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You don’t like Aishwarya opposite Hrithik?
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I do but I still feel that artificial quality. Only, it works with Hrithik, because they both tend to act at sort of a heightened level. Especially in J-A, they are supposed to be people who are always being watched, always needing to appear perfect in front of their subjects, so the kind of mannered behavior makes sense.
On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 9:37 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Okay I finally watched it and it was surprisingly charming. Things I really enjoyed:
Priyanka’s outfits! Seriously, so frickin adorable and outrageous! Second only to her outfits in DDD.
That they didn’t dwell on any of the melodramatic moments to long. I like that the midunderstanding between Priyanka and Uday lasted approximately one song long.
The songs!!! I want a Mama Mia style American-Indian broadway show with these songs! They are so catchy and different and fun.
Uday’s character’s never crosses any lines.
Things I was meh about:
The little girl. I generally feel that kids in movies are cute no matter what but this one was just so mean and not a funny or cute mean. Just mean. And she never really got better. Even in the scene when Uday is trying to teach her the song for the show toward the end of the movie she says “Hut ja mottu” (Move over fatty) to the little kid that is costaring with her. I it didn’t help that the child actor was so startlingly pretty. She is going to grow up to be a bully.
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I told you! I told you it was good!
Agree about PC’s outfits. That sweet spot of “no one would wear this in real life, but I wish they could”. Truly “real” looking outfits are BORING, but if you go too far over the top they stop being cute. And when you have a professional model like PC as your star, that’s the time to really have fun with the costumes.
Yes, it’s such a happy movie! Nothing bad lasts long, nothing is really sad or wrong or anything, we kind of know it will always all work out.
It’s one of those soundtracks where there is a distinctive shared sound between the songs, and yet at the same time each one sounds different. I’m used to that from something highbrow and ambitious like Mirzya or Udta Punjab, but it is a delightful surprise to find it in this unambitious little rom-com.
Yes! They work so hard to make it clear that Uday is a victim of circumstances, not a stalker. It would have been a lot easier to make the plot simply “Uday overhears a nanny, pays her off not to show up, and sneaks into PC’s house in order to make her fall in love with him”. But instead it is all an elaborate misunderstanding and he never intended to fool her.
In a deeper movie, I could see the lesson that the little girl is horrible because PC indulges her since she can’t spend time with her, and Uday helping around the house lets PC finally be free to be a real mother and make her daughter less of a brat. But not enough time for all that in this movie, so she’s just a brat straight through. I like to think that once Uday moves in and PC stops working and Anupam shows up as her Grandpa, there will be more discipline in her life and she will get better.
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 9:15 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I going with your prediction of the little girl because she was so mean that I couldn’t even get my self to make fun of Uday’s looks in this movie! And I have to be able too make fun od Uday’s looks!!!
On a separate note, I thought PC has really good chemistry with Akshay. I would generally disagree that Abhishek has chemistry with everyone. I just don’t see it. But, I love Bluffmaster with Abhishek and PC and think they have great chemistry in it. Also, I thought PC and Farhan has a TON of tension and chemistry in DDD.
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I don’t necessarily think Abhishek has sexual chemistry with everyone, but whenever he is in a film, suddenly I find I am enjoying the performances of the actors around him more than in any other movie. John Abraham in Dostana, PC in Bluffmaster, Aish in Guru, Taapsee in Manmarziyaan, and so on. Somehow he makes everyone else look really good. Not by being bad in comparison, but like being an excellent scene partner.
That’s the kind of chemistry I miss with PC the most. I don’t feel like I notice her scene partners, like she is really clicking with them. And on a separate note, can we agree that the mud/milk sex scene in Bajirao is the least sexy scene PC has ever done? Or is it just me that keeps thinking about how you are going to wash all of that off when the sex is over?
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 9:41 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh it is definitely the least sexy scene PC has done but to me it’s mainly because I saw Bajirao right after seeing DDD and the chemistry between PC and Ranveer as brother and sister was SO good that the Bajirao scene felt like icky and weird. PC and Ranveer should just be siblings or best friends but NOT lovers.
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This is my problem with any Kareena-SRK love story. She will always be his little sister-in-law/foster daughter for me and anything else is WEIRD and WRONG.
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 11:09 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I completely agree! I feel the same way. Oh oh possible discussion post: which actors have way better sibling chemistry than sexual chemistry?
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Like, almost all of them? Sometimes it feels like the pressure of creating sexual tension is just exhausting and everyone is happier when they can just be brother and sister. The only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are Shahrukh and Aish, and Ranveer and Dips.
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 11:37 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Were Ranveer and Dips ever siblings in a movie? Agree about SRK and Aish. Josh was fine but I wasn’t a super huge fan of her sibling chemistry.
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They weren’t, and I don’t want to see it! Juhi and Shahrukh, or Shahrukh and Kajol, were never siblings either (although Paheli came close). And yet, I can imagine that and I am fine with it. Ranveer and Dips though, NEVER!
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 11:59 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I would put Juhi SRK in I like their sexual chemistry more than I would ever like their sibling chemistry. Similarly Madhuri-Salman. Cannot, do not want to see them as siblings/in-laws. I know Madhuri turned down Tabu’s role in HSSH and that was absolutely the right decision. Being Salman’s bhabhi after HAHK would have weirded me out.
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Oh, you are so right about Madhuri-Salman, didn’t even think of that! On the other hand, Madhuri and Shahrukh as siblings would be amazing. Can you imagine? Some kind of Royal Wedding like plot where they are both super famous performers and brother and sister and they each have their own romantic woes with other people?
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 12:06 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh SRK-Madhuri as siblings in a royal wedding would be perfect!
Other couples. Hrithik Karisma: I can only see them as siblings. Tabu-Ajay: this is a weird one. I think they have equal platonic and romantic chemistry. Same with Juhi and Sanjay Suri. I will continue to think of others.
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And I just put up a post just for this!
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 1:02 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I tried watching this movie after your recent list…I was actually enjoying it but spoilt/bratty children are my pet peeve…just do not find the behavior adorable…and PC never disciplines/scolds the child so it just made the whole movie irredeemable for me…
But I had a random thought…how about 101 on Uday Chopra? I am a little curious to know about his childhood…his many attempts at a launch…why did he choose acting instead of following the family tradition of behind the scenes? Why did Aditya even agree to launch him when he doesn’t have the looks/talent? How much money did Aditya Chopra lose because of him? What is he up to these days? So much to un-earth here…
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I am so impressed with how you are working through this list!
Agree, that little girl is not the greatest. But Uday’s likable in this, right?
He might be kind of a fun 101! I think he is talented, more than a lot of the dumb relative launch types, but not quite talented enough, or not talented in the right way. He wrote this script, and it is more than decent. And his performances in this, and the Dhoom films, are more than decent too.
On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 6:14 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yes! The list is perfect for these times…light romantic comedies are exactly what I need to watch right now to escape from reality!
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