Just Buried .. err .. Married

As I write this I cannot believe 4 things:

1. A movie as soporific as Just Married can ever be produced
2. A movie can be so slow and boring that I have to watch a 2.5hr movie split up over 3 evenings
3. I have actually survived watching the mess that the movie was
4. I have so much time on my hands that I decide to write a review for the movie!

Just Married is a movie about a scary situation which I will find myself in sooner than later. Its about arranged marriage. About how couples struggle to cope coming to terms committing to spend the rest of their lives living with an absolute stranger. Well not an absolute stranger, maybe they've met once or twice before, as is the case of the protagonists of this film Abhay (Fardeen Khan) and Ritika (Esha Deol).

So it happens that these two meet at a common friends wedding and before they know it their parents have set them up to get married. They have a brief meeting once again before they marry. During that time Ritika is accompanied by her aunt who wags her mouth endlessly, like a kid high on halloween candy, and makes sure that Abhay and Ritika barely go through somewhat of a muuh-dikhai rasam. One thing leads to another and the newly wed couple is off on their honeymoon.

There-on the story starts to resemble the recently released snore 'Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd'. Our couple jumps onto a honeymoon bus and meet more similar couples during the journey and while at the hotel. Ofcourse every couple has its own quirks. One is an oldies couple who've been married for 30 years and constantly keep nagging each other, one is a bachpan se jaan pehchaan vala couple, one is a NRI couple; the girl with a la-dee-dah phoren accent, and one is a very happy couple who cant seem to keep their hands off each other (literally!).

As the film progresses it focuses on how Ritika, the homebred desi girl, finds it hard to get intimate with Abhay while Abhay tries to play sensitive and gives Ritika her own space and time to adjust. Abhay is eager to consummate the marriage and Ritika's comfort level with Abhay keeps on falling each day. Abhay loses cool and the already uncomfortable couple have a tiff. Then, no prizes for guessing, the rest of the story goes on to show the couple get back together and (probably) live happily ever after.

Stories of the other couples crawl along parallel lines to this story and none are really interesting. There is a slight twist where we find out why the perfect couple seemed so perfect. Mercifully no one is a superhero as was the case in Honeymoon Travels and you can only thank the script writer for that flash of brilliance (of avoiding the superhero trick I mean LOL) The climax is inflicted quite slowly and painfully on the hapless viewer and I can think of atleast one movie where a similar climax was executed in a much much better fashion.

Most performances in the movie are quite credible. Fardeen portrays the earnest, trying-to-adjust husband well and Esha plays the behenji types girl to perfection. Perizaad Zorabian struts her stuff gracefully throughout the movie; her hoarse voice serving the perfect anti-thesis to her gorgeous looks. Bikram Saluja mirrors a block of wood. Kirron Kher and Satish Shah end up taking too much footage. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable.

Some dialogues in the movie are extremely cheesy sugary rosogulla types and do not fail to give you the creeps. (I could've thrown in a sample line or two but I'll spare myself the agony of even skimming through that movie again). Too much cheese is never good, neither in food nor in a movie and the cheesiness becomes almost stroke inducing when the movie ends with a 'The Beginning'. I can never bother to write about the music for a Bollywood flick.

In a nutshell, a must-avoid-at-any-cost movie.