20130909: Comedy Review--Will You Marry Me

Name: Will You Marry Me? (2012)
IMDb: link to Will You Marry Me page

Genres: Comedy, Romance. Country of origin: India.

Cast: Shreyas Taipade as Aarav (Jai); Rajeev Khandelwal as Rajveer (Veeru); Muzamil Ibrahim as Nikhil; Tripta Parashar as Anjali, Mugdha Godse as Sneha, Manoj Joshi as Anjali's father.

Directed by: Aditya Datt.  Written by: Jay Master.

Image courtesy of IMDb

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
The film starts at 2002, during the graduation ceremony at Saint Andrews Academy.  Nikhil asks Anjali to marry him.  Sort of.

Eleven of the young men who were at the graduation sign a pact.  Each has to put in a block of 'Reliance' shares into a pot.  Second, as each man gets married, they forfeit their right to the pot.

After some time, only Jai, Raj, and Nikhil remain single.

Delineation of conflicts:
Nikhil and Anjali are still together, but not for long, unless he commits to marry her.  He asks her, and gives her a ring.  They break up because of the antics of Jai and Veeru.  Sigh.

Nikhil goes through some travails to get Anjali back, such as meeting a wedding dress designer at a gay bar, then having to perform in a dance number there.  The marriage is back on then, so Nikhil loses his claim on the pot.

About this time, Anjali's cousin Sneha shows up on the scene, and both Jai and Veeru are interested in her.  A stock deal gone bad complicates matters.  This reasserts interest in the pot of Reliance shares, especially on Rajveer's part.  Rajveer, with Nikhil's help, tries to nudge Sneha into Aarav's waiting arms.  What could possibly go wrong?

Resolution:
There is substantial money at risk.  There are important human relationships at risk.

One line summary: Romancing the money, or romancing the woman?

Statistics:

Cinematography:  10/10 Quite good.

Sound: 8/10 Adequate to good.  Subtitles were usually well done.

Dance Numbers: 8/10 Lots of fun, nice music.  The voices are richer in sound quality than I expected.
 
Acting: 7/10 The warring idiots, Aarav and Rajeev, are a bit hard to put up with, but otherwise fine.

Screenplay: 8/10 The plot moves right along from beginning to middle to end.

I am reminded of Tomcats (2001), in terms of setup: Jerry O'Connell's character needed to get a friend married off so he could cover his gambling debts.  This remake film is more fun.

Final Rating: 8/10