Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani review: By gawd ki kasam! Ranveer ne dil jeet litta! KJo ki balle balle!

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani review: By gawd ki kasam! Ranveer ne dil jeet litta! KJo ki balle balle!

What: Bollywood is back baybee! In Balenciaga aur Gucci!

By gawd ki kasam, Bollywood sehne ke liye I have to sneak in some whiskey to add to mah black coffee. But this film will warm the cockles of any Missus Chatterjee English professora-in! Kya samjhe!

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani movie review

Especially because K-Jo has hit jackpot this time! Braving the Mumbai rains, I clutched my coffee as if it were going to save me from an assault on my senses. But here I am, sitting in front of my computer, Ranveer ki jhappi se melted fully!

Bollywood is a legacy, and movies like this carry that legacy of love stories forward. With Barbie the film doing better at the box office worldwide than Oppenheimer (we got to enjoy both!), we needed something as fabulous as this love story to give this cinema universe a balance.

So Rocky Randhawa (Ranveer Singh) arrives on the screen with full support from Varun Dhawan, Jahnvi Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Ananya Pandey , and everyone in the theatre falls in love with him. The more you see him (and oooh baby, there is a lot of him we see on screen!), the more you want to jhappi him!

Ranveer Singh carries off any colour, any style! I dare you to wear the star-spangled pair of jeans and still come across as macho. He does. I dare you to wear a bathrobe and make us believe that he heard the ancient joke ‘tum kapda nikalo, main aati hai’ for the very first time. He also made you want to kiss him because he says, ‘Aaj leg day tha, and I missed it because I want to go down on my knees and propose to you…’

You should have heard the collective sigh from the women in the theatre! That’s Bollywood magic right there. His punjabiness reaches up there with the best when he says that pick up line. The jokes came at you like an avalanche and you forgot what the acronym ‘PUPY’ is. But I would take him home.

So, the Randhawas and the Chatterjees are like the Sharks and the Jets. Each won’t let the love blossom between their kids. But there’s a secret. And its more Bollywood than Bollywood can ever be. Dadu (Dharmendra) begins to hear ‘Chaudhvi ka chaand ho!’ and even though the film shamelessly plugs SaReGaMa Careavan, I’ve never seen a better product placement ad. But you can ignore that and start singing ‘Aaj mausam bada beimaan hai’ because it’s raining outside as we watch the film and are moved to tears because Ranveer can deliver that heartfelt dialogue all the while wearing that bright green sherwani.

Aaliya Bhatt plays Rani Chatterjee who decimates Pradhan ji on camera. I would give the film five stars for naming that character and discussing rape. Kudos to the film for stepping into this territory the way it does. Aalia reminds us of Sushmita Sen, chemistry teacher, who sashayed into a school, a file in hand and set the screen on fire in Main Hoon Na. She’s a lovely foil to Ranveer’s loud Punjabiness and it’s fun to watch her being baited by Ranveer’s wicked lines. Ten out of ten to the person who thought up the ‘Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja!’ because that googly came out of nowhere.

And yes, I loved her angry speech to Aamir Bashir who plays grouchy dad to Ranveer’s Rocky. I loved how she catches Rocky’s sister mid trade. I even loved the three singing ‘Aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye’... But I have given away enough spoilers. The trailer gives out many.

We see Jaya Bachchan turn effortlessly into Yashwardhan Raichand of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham spouting the same hurtful dialogue used against her in the movie so nonchalantly. And as if she meant it. I think we would all love to see more of Jaya Bachchan on the silver screen.

Rani’s dad (Tota Roy Chowdhury), mum (Churni Ganguly) and thaku ma (uff Shabana Azmi!) along with Rocky’s mum (Kshitee Jog), dad (Aamir Bashir), sister (Anjali Anand) and dadi make for a great family… And winning their hearts is a lovely story. Look, I’m not saying the ‘dil jeetna’ is a brand-new idea, but how they do it keeps you glued to the screen for two hours and forty eight minutes. And the fun is nonstop. As they say, ‘Isme laughter hai, emotion hai, drama hai, aur rula dene wale aise moments hain ki you will come home and jhappi your uptight family.’