Meri Pyaari Bindu - Movie Review

CAST: Parineeti Chopra, Ayushmann Khurrana, Aparajita Auddy

DIRECTION: Akshay Roy

DURATION: 1 hour 59 minutes

YRF’s latest offering in romance after Aditya Chopra’s Befikre is Meri Pyaari Bindu. What initially seemed like a regular love story based in the charming city of Kolkata, turns out to be an emotionless yawnfest. Yes! There’s little to like or take away from this love story.

Abhimanyu is a confused soul who seems unclear of his feelings for Bindu. She, on the other hand, is commitment phobic on all levels including her life choices. There’s a Runway Bride twist to her character and that’s not really established well so it makes little sense.

Overall, there’s the Ae Dil Hai Mushkil type friendship angle between Bindu and Abhi who enjoy Bollywood and are uninhibited around one another. Coming to the dialogues, there’s lack of natural conversations between the leads despite the portrayal of their childhood friendship.

At one point in the story, Bindu-Abhi’s meet after 4 years in Goa seems extremely random; of course you have stopped finding sense in their interactions from long before.

Whatever happened to good old love stories or least of all matured characters? Going by the way Abhi and Bindu’s relationship is, he could very well be called her ‘Half Boyfriend.’

The entire first half is a flashback and the narrative takes its own sweet time to establish a base. By the second half, you’re too bored to bother about the messed up leads and are eagerly waiting for it to end.

The only enjoyable scenes in this film are the ones where you see Abhi’s chaotic, happy Bengali family.

Parineeti Chopra as Bindu is given too many makeovers in this film. She is constantly on a fashion parade with her dressing speaking more than her character. She probably seems to have failed to catch the vibe of Bindu’s character and more often than not I saw Parineeti in the film, not Bindu.

Ayushmann Khurrana as Bubla aka Abhimanyu is likable but repetitive. His boy-next-door image has little to hold your attention and neither the chemistry with Parineeti works. He partly performs a narrator to the story too and that is slightly better than his act.

Aparajita Auddy as Abhimanyu’s mother was one of my most favorite characters in the film. Her natural act as the mother is likable enough.

Debutant Akshay Roy directs Meri Pyaari Bindu and I’d say he has some learning to do since this debut won’t be a smashing one. If you have watched the Marathi film Ti Sadhya Kay Karte that released recently, there are chances that you find minor resemblances to this film.

It seems like Roy is trying hard to present characters that are relatable considering complicated romances in today’s times but doesn’t come close enough. He tries to experiment the story-telling process to make the film interesting but doesn’t manage to do so. The whole portion of Abhi and Bindu’s messages when she is traveling to Paris and Australia look extremely out of place.

He captures the Kolkata vibe well and I would even say the interesting start of the film with the Goddess was impressive.

Probably the music is the only saving grace in this film. For retro music lovers, there’s Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar and Bappi Lahiri. Sachin-Jigar’s music too works well for this film.

Meri Pyaari Bindu should have been named as ‘Meri Friend-Zoner Bindu’. With no love and lack of emotions!

My Rating: 1/5