‘Nadaaniyan’ Movie Review: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Khushi Kapoor Both At-Sea in This Vacant Vanity Vehicle

Director: Shauna Gautam
Writers: Ishita Moitra, Riva Razdan Kapoor, Jehan Handa
Cast: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Mahima Chaudhry, Suniel Shetty, Dia Mirza, Jugal Hansraj, Archana Puran Singh, Meezaan Jafri
Streaming on: Netflix

It’s a wonder that after 12 years of professional film criticism and finding creative ways to pan ghastly Bollywood movies, the deepest thought that entered my head after watching Nadaaniyan was: “I want to kick this film”. Such a primal, crude urge. Kick, really? So much for all those analytical skills and fancy words. All those carefully constructed rants and sarcastic takedowns. It’s the kind of thought that’s second to an animalistic grunt. I should do better. I should be calmer.

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But hey, at least I’m calling myself out here. At least I’m admitting that my brain is broken and incapable of making sense. That makes me ‘Self-Aware’. And self-awareness is a superpower that we often abuse to weaponise our flaws. In this day and age, an idiot that knows they’re an idiot is automatically wise. So if I were a movie, I’d be an unserious star-kid launch vehicle in which a Gen-Z diva introduces herself with a voice-over that goes “I know I look like a poster princess of privilege and entitlement”. She knows. Apparently, this excuses her from being a vapid poster princess of privilege and entitlement for the rest of the story. If I were a movie, I’d feature an elite school called Falcon High that looks like the Student of the Year campus barfed all over the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai campus — one where Orry randomly shows up for another tired pop-cultural gag; where wealthy Delhi brats bully full-scholarship students only for a full-scholarship student to convince the class to make him debate captain by lifting his shirt and flashing his six-pack abs; where every scene looks like a Colgate commercial broke up with a Cornetto ad and started dating a jewellery ad and a premium real-estate ad (hashtag-polyglamory); and where every teenager sounds like a hologram of a teenager. If I were a movie, I’d be such a cringe-parody of myself that a defeated film critic starts his review with a gimmick about the evils of self-awareness. As we speak, he’s kicking himself instead of the film.

A still from 'Nadaaniyan'

Nadaaniyan is about an annoying 18-year-old girl, Pia (an at-sea Khushi Kapoor), who fake-dates the hunky new all-rounder, Arjun (an at-sea Ibrahim Ali Khan), for reasons that are better left unknown. Naturally, they fall in love while pretending to be in love because what’s a rom-con without a spa-package awakening? Arjun is my-dad-is-only-a-doctor poor, mind you. Pia is my-dad-cheats-and-my-mom-wanted-a-son rich, mind you. Pia is woke enough to post Instagram stories captioned “pyaar with a tadka of patriarchy” at her (dysfunctional) family breakfast table. Arjun is cool enough to be a renowned debate champ without uttering a single smart syllable throughout the film. At one point, he tells Pia that he discussed “fiscal deficits, budgets and future predictions” with her dad. To his credit, he pronounces these terms with the straightest face possible. She is impressed. I am impressed.

At another point, Arjun convinces Pia’s parents that she has the potential to be the best lawyer in the world because “her brain is sharper than a razor blade” — despite the script offering zero evidence of the same. Up until that point, all she’s done is pay him ₹ 25,000 a week to fend off the college predator. When they practice debating, the camera steers clear of glossy lips and spoken words; the music drowns out any semblance of speech and turns them into a cutesy montage. She does impress her parents with her take on the “morality of private health care,” but I couldn’t tell if she was arguing in favour of vaccines or against them; her dad reacts like she’s cracked the gravity equation in Interstellar (2014). I suppose Pia’s personality could be stranger. Imagine if she coped with her parents’ bad marriage like Meghna from Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na (2008), an approach that can best be described as: “delulu is the only solulu”. She comes close, though. Pia likes having Arjun around because it makes her papa (Suniel Shetty, mimicking Anil Kapoor) stay at home, entertain them and neglect the affair he’s having. It also makes her long-suffering mom (Mahima Chaudhry) smile a little. The Dhadkan (2000) reunion is lost on us nostalgic millennials by the end.

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Basically, everyone in this film is gifted and brilliant even if the film-making treats them as total airheads. Arjun has a ‘vision chart’ that looks more like an investigative board in a true-crime thriller. His graph is clear: top the class, win big debate contest, get into the best law school, start an app called QuickKanoon that enables laymen connect with lawyers, sell the app to Google, get rich and fund his parents’ retirement. Life is hard in Noida, you see; they can only afford to have dinner as a family outside their bungalow in a cosy yard by a wood-fired oven. Pia asks if there’s room for love and friendship (important emotions) in his vision chart. The film has ended and I’m yet to figure out the answer to that question. Every performer seems to be in photo mode instead of video mode; the mood lighting does not look comfortable with the concept of motion.

A still from 'Nadaaniyan'

The thing about Nadaaniyan is that it blunts the Dharma Productions’ shtick of meta gags, woke updates and confessional storytelling. A girl speaks back to the elders and accuses them of being hypocrites; an upper-class couple agrees to have a divorce; a father reassures his son that “it’s fine to fall in love twice”; Archana Puran Singh plays Miss Braganza, the ditzy Kuch Kuch Hota Hai principal, but this time with a penchant for digital lingo; a bully imitates Kal Ho Naa Ho’s “che din ladki in (get a girl in 6 days)” catchphrase; Pia calls Arjun her ‘green flag’ in a sea of red flags. The reason these scenes are supposed to be progressive and sporting is because the same production company built its legacy on taglines like “it’s all about loving your family” and “you fall in love once and you marry once”. Only in the larger-than-life Karan Johar multiverse do these moments mean something subversive — or anything at all. It’s staged as a signal of intent: upgrade old values and flaunt this wink-wink self awareness.

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But in isolation, these scenes are hardly remarkable; they’re almost backward. Mainstream Hindi cinema has addressed far more than vanilla-liberal themes like divorce, traditionalism and reverence. It’s 2025. When divorced from its context — or, in this case, when divorced from witty dialogue, voice modulation, chemistry, colour correction, breezy music and overall tone — such films become empty shells of posturing and nepo-space. The meta-ness has long lost its charm. They become ‘How Not To Make Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023)’ modules. The commentary gets exposed for the social media bubble it lives in.

For studios that like playing this self-reflexive game, it’s worth remembering that owning your shortcomings doesn’t absolve you of them; it creates an illusion that perhaps these shortcomings are worth having. It’s not always about faking it till you make it. Or, well, fake-dating it till you make (someone want to kick) it. If nothing else, there’s the one parent that sagely compares “pyaar without nadaaniyan” (love without foolishness) to kulfi without falooda. Unfortunately, at no point did his diabetes-averse parable make me think: I want to eat this film.