Ayushmann Khurrana and Nushrat Bharucha fall in love in film “Dream Girl” released by Balaji Motion Pictures
A film review that features a play on the term ‘dream girl’
The film “Dream Girl” was a surprisingly progressive film for a romantic comedy that is based upon the premise of a straight man pretending to be a woman on a phone-sex line. It was directed by Raaj Shaanilyaa and stars Ayushmaan Khurrana and Nushrat Bharucha,
Khurrana plays Karamvir Singh, a middle-class man who does a perfect ‘woman voice.’ He grows up playing female characters in plays, much to the chagrin of his father who wants him to get a real job.
He finally finds a job, as a woman named Pooja at phone-sex hotline. Hilarity ensues when the callers begin to fall in love with him all plan on marrying Karamvir/Pooja. The kicker? These men include his brother-in-law and his own father.
Well… technically it was a ‘phone-a-friend’ call center, because a phone sex line wouldn’t have meshed well with Bollywood media censors. Too taboo, I guess. But other than that, I don’t think a single taboo was left unbroken in this film. From the gender bending protagonist, to the queer storyline of a woman, named Roma Gupta (Nidhi Bisht) falling in love with Karamvir/Pooja.
I also quite enjoyed the sublot in which Karamvir/Pooja and his fiance Mahi (Nushrat Bharucha) give the call center boss a rant about how the fact that he made any profit of the women who were actually doing the work is exploitation. Not sure why I enjoyed it so much. It just played really well to my Leftist sensibilities.
I felt that there were some tone deaf areas as well, as any film that is made in conservative censorship will. Take for example Roma, a woman, who falls in love with Pooja, who in her eyes is also a woman, but only because she hasn’t found the right guy. At the beginning of the film, she has been through three breakups already, which turns her into the proverbial ‘man-hating bitch,’ an obviously misogynistic, characterization.
There is also the time when, a Karamvir/Pooja, tells her not to “Give up on men, because of a few bad apples.” Which seemed to me to negate her entire story arc as a woman who falls in love with another woman. Although not everyone I talked to felt that way.
Capri Catanzaro, a fellow moviegoer, had another take on the subject.
“I don’t think he was telling her not to give up on women, but rather to ignore the gender binary altogether,” she said.
Which makes sense in the context of the film, seeing as how Karamvir/Pooja rejects the binary in order to provide for himself and his father.
Then, of course, there were some Islamaphobic moments, where the religion and it’s customs are played for laughs. But to my eye, these are more similar to an American, protestant filmmaker making fun of Catholics, rather than an American filmmaker making fun of… well, Islam. Although then again, I have to disclose that I only have a tangential understanding of Hindu/Muslim relations in India, based on a few friendships of mine on both sides of that aisle, so I may be wrong there.
All in all, the film was very funny, with all the jokes worked as well in subtitle form, as I assume they worked for the native speakers in the audience. Which, from my movie watching experiences, is a difficult balance to strike, as people in different countries find different things funny. I would definitely recommend anyone looking for a good film to watch that isn’t touched by the American Hollywood System, to watch “Dream Girl.”