She is a romantic, wants to get married someday to the man who loves her deeply. He is a foul-mouthed underdog who has only career in mind. He is a mama’s boy, while she desperately wants to be daddy’s little girl. She’s rich, he’s not. And with zero chemistry between the two leads who are as different as chalk and cheese, the film soldiers on to tell their great love story. Only, it isn’t and probably shouldn’t even be called one when clearly the only thing the two leads have in common is that they equally try hard in a film that gave up a long time ago.
There’s talent, but no heart, Dil Juunglee joins the league of been-there-done-that plotlines where, after a much-deserved break up between the two leads, the universe somehow conspires to get them back together because, “Love Triumphs All”.
Koroli Nair (Taapsee Pannu) is unlucky in love, an irony because all she craves in life is a man who will love her. Coming from a rich family, Koro is a timid, confused woman-child who dreams of love thanks to the romance novels she’s constantly reading. She meets Sumit Uppal (Saqib Saleem), a student of hers at The Language School, who aspires to become an actor some day. They don’t exactly hit it off, but Koro does what she does the best – dream of love with him.
They elope but things don’t go as planned. After witnessing his real side, that took staggeringly long for her, Koro walks away. And then they meet seven years later, and love does what it does the best – make two people do stupid things together.
Dil Juunglee, by the looks of its trailer and songs, gives one the impression that it’s about two people who are eager to correct their mistakes from years ago and perhaps tread down a better path. Only here, the two deem it better to pick up from they left off, where the whiny guy continues to display a sense of entitlement and the puppy-eyed girl still remains as naive as she was years ago.
The guy isn’t happy to see her doing better than him seven years later and hence, makes it his mission to show that her previous self, the silly woman-child, is the *real* her and not the currently successful entrepreneur. Bruised male egos and privilege reek in this rom-com, a subtle reminder that no matter how many “progressive” modern tales of love Bollywood churns out, the point of equality flies out of the window from the first half itself.
Recommended
Ever since Pink, Taapsee has been seen playing a motley of roles. In Naam Shabana, while she played a hardcore spy, she was overshadowed by the looming presence of a star like Akshay Kumar who, predictably, walked away with all the credit. Next, there was Judwaa 2, a film that normalised toilet humour and women as eye-candy. Dil Juunglee, though, is the worst of the lot, where neither the jokes nor the story works. As talented as she might be, it’s rather baffling to see her choose a film that does no justice to the story or her character. In a lot of ways, the film incorporates stereotypes on how women are high-maintenance and like to shop while men are the ones who make a living, in addition to the gay best friend trope that was totally unnecessary.
Saqib Saleem might have been told that he has potential, and he visibly does. But in Dil Juunglee, the poor writing and execution is strong enough to bring him down.
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The Dil Junglee review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.