A Thoroughly Disappointing Movie!

I've lived in India for several years, and I love the country, the people, and the culture. So, every once in a while, I fulfill my travel fantasies of returning the the sub-continent by watching Hindi movies. I love the dancing, the songs, and color, and the wild plots that make most Indian films a unique treasure in human culture.

My most recent viewing, however, left me wondering how in hell I could recover the three hours I lost by watching this film.

The movie in question: Luv Ranjan’s Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, a film made in 2018. The story is a simple one. A young man (Titu, played by Sunny Singh) is going to marry a young woman (Sweety, played by Nushratt Bharuccha). It’s an arranged marriage, approved of by both sets of parents.

The problem is, Titu has a “brother” (Sonu, played by Kartik Aaryan) who has been his constant companion for most of their lives, who disapproves of the arranged marriage. Sonu does not believe that Sweety is the perfect match for Titu. He resolves early on to find a way to break up the proposed marriage.

This is not something new for Sonu. The movie opens with scenes of Titu and his girlfriend Pihu Khanna. Titu truly loves Pihu, but Sonu points out how much she controls and manipulates Titu, how vain she is, how much she ignores him. Finally, Sonu gives Titu and ultimatum: “Choose Pihu or choose me. You can’t have both.”

For the viewer, despite his protestations of love, Titu seems to make the right decision and chooses his life-long friend. Dejected and unhappy, Pihu leaves the relationship.

Sweety is a much more worthy adversary than Pihu was, and despite all of Sonu’s attempts to break up the engagement of Titu and Sweety. By the end of the movie, however, Sonu resorts to his ultimate gambit. “Choose me or choose her, you can’t have both.”

And once again, Titu chooses his best friend, leaving Sweety in tears at the fire pit (or altar, if you prefer).

I was shocked by the ending. It would have been just as satisfying if Titu had pulled out a gun and blew Sweety’s face to smithereens. What had happened in this otherwise engaging and amusing film?

First, there was no growth on any part of the three main characters, though I’m not too sure about Sweety. But it is quite clear that Titu was a spineless sod at the beginning of the movie and he was a spineless sod at the end. It is also quite clear that Sonu was a self-serving narcissistic creep at the beginning of the movie (all of the things he objected to Pihu doing with Titu, he himself did). By the end of the movie, he had become even worse. To top it off, when Titu remarks that perhaps neither of them will ever get married, Sonu insists that on the contrary, he will get married by age 30. But Sonu demonstrated no personal development whatsoever, if becoming even crueler and meaner is dlevelopment.

Second, although Sweety was shown to be a worthy opponent of Sonu’s machinations, very little of what she did was actually mean-spirited, whereas Sonu’s actions were designed to get Titu into trouble. Most telling was Pihu’s condemnation of what Sonu was doing, when she pointed out that it was cruel and almost evil.

Third, to the extent that a movie attempts to show behavior that is important for society to understand, this movie shows two men who treat women like dung patties. Titu is weak and spineless; Sonu was cruel and destructive.

No one in society should ever emulate their behavior.

Luv Ranjan, the director, has a history of making movies that border on misogynistic, but this movie did it for me. I will never watch any more of his movies. He claims that he was trying to show that modern marriage in India must now take into account not just the family but the friends of the partners. If that is the case, he is showing that if Sonu is the kind of friend one has, then plan on having a miserable life.

Because that kind of friend will never think of what you need; he will only think of what he needs.