I didn’t imagine I’d be starting a film review in 2026 with the question: what if Baghban and Kal Ho Naa Ho hooked up, had a baby out of wedlock, tried to make it work, lived separate lives in one home, but traumatised the child because of their dysfunctional relationship? That kid would grow up to be Daadi Ki Shaadi (“Grandmother’s Wedding”) of course: a dated and overlong and cloying and unfunny family dramedy that again scolds busy Indians for not visiting their aging and lonely parents enough. How often have we seen adult children of widows or widowers shamed for treating their seniors like an afterthought?
I won’t be too much of a grump here, I promise. So Daadi Ki Shaadi opens with the titular gag. Tony (Kapil Sharma) and Kanika (Sadia Khateeb) are getting engaged, well on their way to a big fat arranged wedding, when the event is interrupted by a piece of news: Kanika’s Shimla-based grandmother, Vimla (Neetu Singh), mentions on Facebook that she’s getting married. She wasn’t invited to this ceremony, and that’s a gripe for another decade. The engagement breaks, because what a stigma it is. Tony decides to accompany Kanika’s family (including more relatives who weren’t invited) to Shimla in the hope of being Shah Rukh Khan’s Aman from Kal Ho Naa Ho: the nosy outsider who wants to fix a fragmented household. Even if it's for his own selfish reasons.
We soon learn that poor Vimla made a typo on social media, but she doesn’t confess because she enjoys the company of her family after so many years. She has missed them so much that the lie needs to be sustained. So the rest of the film maneuvers and turns like a drunken python for Vimla to keep up this charade and manufacture a husband-to-be out of thin air — all so that her three children eventually realise how insensitive and transactional they’ve been all along. Tony starts out as a selfish buffoon who wants to rescue his own engagement, but then switches sides to help Vimla because he’s cool like that. Also, the film doesn’t quite know what to do with him otherwise. Towards the end, one of the humbled characters even asks, “why couldn’t you tell us directly instead of doing all this?”. The giggles and impassioned groans I heard around me confirmed that this was the sentiment of the audience in the hall too.
Daadi Ki Shaadi (not to be mispronounced as Daddy Ki Shaadi; I found out the hard way) somehow spends more than 150 minutes cooking up scenarios in the picturesque Shimla cottage. Vimla’s two sons — which includes Kanika’s ultra-Delhi dad — are taught a lesson in every conceivable way. After being criticised for her big decision, she goes a bit too far to summon their attention and empathy, even by the standards of a flimsy Bollywood entertainer. Vimla fake-loves a man, fake-sells their childhood souvenirs, gets fake-betrayed by her fake suitor twice, gets fake-humiliated by him to provoke her sons into protecting her, pretends to have a fake gambling habit and debt, and even threatens to live in an old-age home so that she doesn’t hope anymore. There’s emotional blackmail and there’s Vimla, a needy parent who requires a trash-talking angel like Tony to fix her family. It’s none of his business, but when has that stopped a man?
Strangely, both Kapil Sharma and Neetu Singh are flattened to a series of reaction shots while the others descend into cliches and chaos. In an ideal universe, Singh could have played Vimla as a spiritual sibling to her character from Jugjugg Jeeyo (2022), but Daadi Ki Shaadi treats most of its women as concepts who just happen to speak a little. The written-by-men vibe is strong, not least when scenes feature the female characters being shut down repeatedly (what is comedian Aditi Mittal doing here?) until they get the most unconvincing payoff. Of the rest, Deepak Dutta as the elder son named Jeevan has his moments, particularly when he’s still whiny enough to be amusing.
But the irony is lost on a film that neglects the complexities of Vimla, its alleged protagonist, in favour of a tone that’s neither silly enough nor serious enough. It’s no Badhaai Ho as a social-message movie, but Daadi Ki Shaadi is at best ‘joint-family propaganda’. Which is cute in a way, because it insists on being both traditional (respect your folks) and modern (let them remarry), as long as the kids are the fickle villains. I’m not sure how every second Hindi comedy unfolds as the cinematic equivalent of that judgey uncle at weddings who nods his head ruefully and chastens young generations (“kids today…”) for daring to be independent and different. But here we are, back to square one, guilting audiences into being Good Sons and Daughters through regressive themes dressed as bleeding-heart dramas. Uncle is only on his third peg and wondering what a situationship is.