Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie review: Shahid Kapoor-Kriti Sanon serve confused mish-mash of genres

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie review: The film stars Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon in the lead role.

Shahid Kapoor makes a good lover. His act may be practised and rehearsed but when it comes to doing the pyaar-vyaar thing, you still go ahhh. And that goes even when he is with the latest object of his adoration, Kriti Sanon’s Sifra, a super-intelligent robot who looks and feels human.

But, and this is the thing, this holds true only some of the times, because large tracts of ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’, a long-winded title of a film which feels even longer, is just such a confused mish-mash of genres, filled with tropey characters: sci-fi meets mushy romance meets loving Indian parivaar. Kya yaar.

Cool cat Aryan (Shahid Kapoor) and best pal Monty (Ashish Verma) float around a plush office talking robotics until it’s time for the former to meet-cute Sifra, somewhere in the USA, under the benign eye of his super-creator maasi (Dimple Kapadia). This is the kind of film which feels comfortable labelling a generic scene ‘USA’, just in case we find names of specific cities too weighty.

So here we are, in Amrika, with a shaadi-phobic male and a stunning female robot in close confines. So of course there’s song and sizzle, with sheets getting nicely rumpled. Aryan aka Aaru knows the truth, and yet finds himself hopelessly smitten, as Sifra goes about being a potential dutiful Indian wife, saying ‘theek hai’ to everything he says.

Watch Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie trailer:

Ooh, you think, could we be in for a grown-up relationship movie, with existential questions about men and machines, the ethics involved in creating robots with human feelings, and the whole question of control. Haha, gotcha, the filmmakers retort, as they plonk us back in ‘Hum Aapke Hain Koun’ territory with a collective gathering of mummyji, daddyji, dadaji (Dharmendra), bua, phoofa, and the statutory scenes filled with with sagaai, sangeet, and Manyavar suitings. Sigh.

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For a film which wants to be a family entertainer, there are risible sequences featuring men peering down low-cut blouses-and-bosoms, and tasteless wife jokes. Monty the Hero’s Best Friend does exactly what BFFs have done for decades, make the hero look good: when will this oldest, creakiest device be dumped?

Some of the snappiest lines in the movie are reserved for Kapoor, and when he is not being mannered and conscious of his hero-status– just a guy standing in front of a gal– he reminds you that he can be something to look at, like he did back in ‘Jab We Met’. And then the movie is taken away from the strengths he plays to, and starts swinging wildly: is it a robot-com, or a robot-horror, or just another stab at this, that and the other?

Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie cast: Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Dharmendra, Dimple Kapadia, Ashish Verma, Anubha Fatehpuria, Rakesh Bedi, Grusha Kapoor
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie directors: Amit Joshi, Aradhna Seth
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya movie rating: 2 stars