I have to get this out of my system. We need to talk about the dying — nay, extinct — art of the background score in mainstream Hindi cinema. The setup of Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 somewhat brings to mind Haseen Dillruba (2021), the romantic thriller about semi-toxic newlyweds in Haridwar; she’s a siren, he’s a Nice Guy, she cheats, then he becomes the madness and badness she craves for. I remember disliking Haseen Dillruba until a haunting theme in the climax made me rethink my reading of the entire film — a rare case of a score urging the viewer to feel a story rather than judge it. That’s the job of background music and supplementary sound: an extension of unfilmable text, not lazy mood-prompts for the audience.
Tell that to Ginny Wedss Sunny 2, the spiritual sequel to Ginny Weds Sunny (2020) and the movie version of a cartoon clown at a live-action birthday party. The score is a collection of juvenile cues that range from a sultry moan when a girl flirts with the hero, a scream when hero’s dad begs for a daughter-in-law who’s not dead, the chants of a choir when hero’s catholic friend yells Jesus, a boing (the Tom-tricking-Jerry kind) when said father mishears call-center girl as call-girl in the middle of a dramatic fight, another boing when a woman reveals that she was about to divorce her husband before he suddenly died, a gunshot to punctuate a gangster anecdote that syncs with a football exploding (don’t ask). You get the gist: a roar if a tiger (or Bajirao Singham) is mentioned, a trumpet if an elephant is cited, silent tears if a film critic is referenced. It’s 2026, and some romantic comedies still behave like their core audience is 2-year-olds who get amused by casio sound effects and sledgehammer gags. What’s the point of a visual medium when the sound is designed as if the screen is blank?
Now that it’s out of my system, let’s get to whatever’s left of Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 between those cues. The title has “gin” and “sun” in it, but there’s nothing remotely cocktail-ish and breezy about the film. Sunny (Avinash Tiwary) is a wrestler from Rishikesh who is ineligible for marriage after a video of him being falsely accused of sexual harassment on a bus goes viral. He is reduced to running a tourist shop in town, where his bachelorhood is scoffed upon. The “colour” in his life features his desperate dad, his cranky older brother, and his IAS-in-waiting best friend. Not once does the banter and quirks in the household land; that’s quite an achievement for a 132-minute slog. Ginny (Medha Shankr) is a party-loving girl in Delhi; she’s a Bollywood concept of Modern because she wears skimpy clothes, loves drinking (with her single mother too), has a job, has ex-boyfriends and broken engagements, and is sexually active. Her mother laments that soon her age will be the same as her bra size — so edgy. I’m not sure why Ginny is ineligible, but the film insists that she is a confident misfit doomed to permanent spinsterhood in a city full of flashy men. She wants someone simple.
No prizes for guessing what the conceit is. Both families decide to lie in a newspaper matrimonial ad. So what we get is a Sunny who pretends to be a well-educated entrepreneur in search of a traditional housewife, and a Ginny who claims to be illiterate and traditional and homely. They get married, and the conflict arises the moment Ginny unleashes her kinky self on their wedding night. You know how the second half goes: he feels betrayed and acts like a disgruntled customer trying to return a defective package, she feels betrayed, and they may or may not realise that their authentic selves are compatible with each other’s value systems. Movies that derive humour out of social stereotypes are inherently regressive, but Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 is like that old-fashioned uncle (in a hat) at a family dinner who guilts youngsters into chuckling at his increasingly offensive and tone-deaf jokes.
The cinematography has a rough-cut, non-colour-corrected feel to it. The film reaches for a 1990s-David-Dhawan-comedy vibe, where the tackiness is part of the joke (especially when lovers woo each other by dancing in campy clothes at public places). The acting is a casualty. There’s a nanosecond of spark when Sunny and Ginny have their first showdown in public, but Avinash Tiwary is awkward in an Ayushmann Khurrana-coded role and Medha Shankr (from 12th Fail) looks uncomfortable in the over-the-top comic moments. The supporting cast throws chaos at the wall hoping that something will stick. The one scene that succeeds in eliciting laughter is supposed to be a serious one: when a heartbroken Ginny goes back home and sincerely tells her mother that “only the toilet there was modern”.
Both of them are missing a parent — a void that’s meant to justify their personality flaws (all of which are sold as merits initially). When they accidentally reach Haridwar at some point in the second half, I entertained myself by imagining a shared universe with the spicy Haseen Dillruba couple. Add the sequel’s crocodile to the mix, and we have a psychosexual drama featuring two arranged marriages defeated by a background score that sounds suspiciously like the groans of a lonely reptile every night.