Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya is a predictable sci-fi comedy with uninspired jokes and a focus on family drama, saved only by decent performances from the lead actors.
The Good
- Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon
- Youthful feel
The Bad
- Not much innovation
- Weak script
A human falling in love with a robot is an idea as old as the sci-fi genre itself. On Indian screens, we have had Rajinikanth’s show-stopping Robot (Enthiran in Tamil, 2010) that actually inverted the idea with a delightful subversion. It had the robot getting all romantic with a woman and then going all rogue in pursuit of that relationship.
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, directed by the debutants Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah, doesn’t aspire for anything lofty or new. Instead, it keeps it predictable and tries to harvest laughs through low-hanging jokes as the robot is mistaken for a real daughter-in-law in a Punjabi household.
The jokes, too, write themselves in such a situation. That is the problem with Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya. It never takes a stab at making you guess or keeping you surprised.
The story is simple: Aryan Agnihotri (Shahid Kapoor) is a robotics engineer. His aunt Urmila (Dimple Kapadia), who owns a robotics company, insidiously traps him into developing feelings for Sifra (Kriti Sanon). Just that Sifra is a robot. After dancing and partying with the robot in spirited gusto, Aryan heads to India and introduces Sifra to his Punjabi family. Now, listen to this: He wants to marry her, while his family, to start with, doesn’t know that she isn’t a human. The climax stretches your limits of credulity. But most of the second half is focused on going for the funny bone.
There is a gaggle of characters, and they all keep talking, sometimes simultaneously. The characters are painted with the broadest of broad strokes.
There is the liquor-swigging granddad (Dharmendra), the verbose dad (Rakesh Bedi), the coy mom Sharmila (Anubha Fatehpuria), and sundry other relatives, including Mama (Rajesh Kumar), but (Grusha Kapoor), foofa Brijbhushan Shukla (Foofa).
Thrown into the mix is Aryan’s friend Monty (Ashish Verma), and there is also the family cook Pappu (Raashul Tandon). Sci-fi anyone? This is a family soap opera of sorts.
Actually, making a sci-fi story into a family fun subject could have been a chutzpah-filled twist. No, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya doesn’t play out like that. Its ambitions are rather modest.
The film is largely functional on the basis of Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon’s performances. Even though their chemistry is just about adequate, both are in great form.
Shahid, with scope for his signature dance movement aplenty, is in good form. There is an earnestness in his performance that comes across despite the limitations of the script. So is Kriti, as she imbibes her character with sincerity. As a robot with feeling, her role, at least on paper, is complex. She delivers it with the right mix of coldness and warmth. The rest of the characters chatted a lot without registering much.
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, about man, machine and mush, is mostly mechanical.