CAST: Kartik Aaryan, Alaya F, Karan A Pandit, Sajjad Delafrooz, Naresh Kumar
DIRECTOR: Shashanka Ghosh
The story of a 28-year-old introvert, recluse and loner dentist, Dr Freddy Ginwala (Kartik Aaryan), who has been on a matrimonial website Meri Shaadi.com for five years looking for a ‘soulmate’, Freddy keeps you hooked without blinking an eyelid.
Freddy meets Kainaaz and falls in love with her at first sight only to realize that she is already married. Yet, he is drawn to her as she comes to him to extract her wisdom tooth. He realizes that her husband abuses her and is physically violent towards her.
As Freddy and Kainaaz meet, they fall in love, yet the abusive husband keeps harming Kainaaz.
The story accelerates when Freddy stages the death of the abuser to free Kainaaz from the torture but another nasty surprise awaits him.
The story hereafter precipitates in a cat and mouse chase where Kainaaz unmasks another side of her character and Freddy defends and attacks her with a cold tenacity that makes his character such a dope schemer.
At two hours 13 minutes, Freddy doesn’t look stretched neither it goes off track. Despite the story getting slightly predictable in the second half, the film manages to keep up with its pace.
Freddy is Kartik Aaryan’s most interesting role so far and he carries it with the finesse of a veteran. From gaining 14 kgs, adapting the introvert body language, learning the skills of a dentist to emoting joy, sorrow, love and lust with so much conviction — he is flawless.
Alaya F is seamlessly perfect. This is her second film after her debut Jawaani Deewani (2020), and Alaya shows a relationship with the camera that few newcomers have in their first few years.
Parveez Sheikh’s story is great overall but the script might have needed more work especially to support Freddy’s transformation. The authentic Parsi flavor inserts itself with the house decor, props, language and words used by the characters and of course their names. However, there are no lines you can take home.
The big reveal at the interval and the climax are undoubtedly the high points of the film along with the layered character development. This is certainly a great watch.
