It looks like the writer-director tried to ride completely on Ayushmann-Bhumi's chemistry and forgot to focus on the story. The amount of responsibility that the topic of the movie demanded wasn't really shown. Instead, what we get is a half-hearted effort on a sensitive topic that even the lead pair's excellent performance couldn't save.
Story (6/10): Mudit (Ayushmann Khurana) is in love with Sugandha (Bhumi Padnekar) and somehow even manages to get his love marriage arranged as he struggles to make the right moves at the girl - so the shortcut. Everything is going fine, except physically. Eventually, Mudit realizes he has erectile dysfunction problem. However, it is too gigantic problem for an Indian male to share with anyone. The rest of the story focuses only on two things - 1) Tricks Mudit tries to solve the problem - from religious to medical - without any success and the frustration after every failed attempts, 2) Sugandha's efforts to make things work in spite of this and to make sure love doesn't lose in front of physical aspirations. The story focuses on the taboo in the Indian society around the erectile dysfunction as a genuine problem as the character tries hard to ensure nobody comes to know about it. However, the irony is that he cannot explore solutions without discussing the problem. One thing that the writers created amazingly well was Sugandha's character sketch of a strong girl who shows a lot of patience and commitment to resolve the problem but also keeps his (Mudit's) behavior in check whenever he is doing something wrong, without hurting him. Full marks to Bhumi Padnekar for capitalizing on it. Definitely to watch out for. However, the flow of the story goes off track in the second half of the movie where it is basically directionless. Role of the lead pair's parents have been weirdly scripted and doesn't make any sense to the context of the story. Climax was totally screwed up with the poorly conceptualized and scripted (almost boring) scenes that didn't make any sense to the plot of the movie. The story fails in the end to get to a conclusion (let alone a logical one). The movie seems to be another example of how our writers and directors continue to struggle with the second half of the movies.
Acting (7/10): Except for the lead pair, the movie struggles in the acting department. Largely the culprit has been the script. Ayushmann Khurana was marginally worse than Dumb Laga Ke Haisha or Vicky Donor. Bhumi Padnekar seems to have been improving with every movie and her fans would definitely love her performance in this one. The chemistry of the lead pair continues to be amazing as one will love to watch them together throughout the movie. The rest of the cast had very vague character to follow with no clear behavioral trait(s) defined. Lack of any other big names, perhaps, also seems to have costed the movie big time.
Direction (5/10): R. S. Prasanna did very well in the first half of the movie where the flow and pacing of the movie was done perfectly well. The scenes were making sense. Some of the metaphors to the central problem, which we saw in the trailer as well, like the Parle-G analogy was really hilarious and innovative. However, the second half of the movie was totally lost in commotion. The seriousness with which the sensitive topic had to be dealt was missing. Comedy was unnecessarily loud and cheap. The climax - the most important part of the second half - was poorly treated. Cameo of Jimmy Shergill was totally unnecessary and his dialogues didn't make any sense.
Overall (6/10): It could have been much better effort to bring to front a legitimate medical health problem that is unnecessarily considered a taboo. Execution, as much good in the first half, is totally out of place in the rest of the movie.
Story (6/10): Mudit (Ayushmann Khurana) is in love with Sugandha (Bhumi Padnekar) and somehow even manages to get his love marriage arranged as he struggles to make the right moves at the girl - so the shortcut. Everything is going fine, except physically. Eventually, Mudit realizes he has erectile dysfunction problem. However, it is too gigantic problem for an Indian male to share with anyone. The rest of the story focuses only on two things - 1) Tricks Mudit tries to solve the problem - from religious to medical - without any success and the frustration after every failed attempts, 2) Sugandha's efforts to make things work in spite of this and to make sure love doesn't lose in front of physical aspirations. The story focuses on the taboo in the Indian society around the erectile dysfunction as a genuine problem as the character tries hard to ensure nobody comes to know about it. However, the irony is that he cannot explore solutions without discussing the problem. One thing that the writers created amazingly well was Sugandha's character sketch of a strong girl who shows a lot of patience and commitment to resolve the problem but also keeps his (Mudit's) behavior in check whenever he is doing something wrong, without hurting him. Full marks to Bhumi Padnekar for capitalizing on it. Definitely to watch out for. However, the flow of the story goes off track in the second half of the movie where it is basically directionless. Role of the lead pair's parents have been weirdly scripted and doesn't make any sense to the context of the story. Climax was totally screwed up with the poorly conceptualized and scripted (almost boring) scenes that didn't make any sense to the plot of the movie. The story fails in the end to get to a conclusion (let alone a logical one). The movie seems to be another example of how our writers and directors continue to struggle with the second half of the movies.
Acting (7/10): Except for the lead pair, the movie struggles in the acting department. Largely the culprit has been the script. Ayushmann Khurana was marginally worse than Dumb Laga Ke Haisha or Vicky Donor. Bhumi Padnekar seems to have been improving with every movie and her fans would definitely love her performance in this one. The chemistry of the lead pair continues to be amazing as one will love to watch them together throughout the movie. The rest of the cast had very vague character to follow with no clear behavioral trait(s) defined. Lack of any other big names, perhaps, also seems to have costed the movie big time.
Direction (5/10): R. S. Prasanna did very well in the first half of the movie where the flow and pacing of the movie was done perfectly well. The scenes were making sense. Some of the metaphors to the central problem, which we saw in the trailer as well, like the Parle-G analogy was really hilarious and innovative. However, the second half of the movie was totally lost in commotion. The seriousness with which the sensitive topic had to be dealt was missing. Comedy was unnecessarily loud and cheap. The climax - the most important part of the second half - was poorly treated. Cameo of Jimmy Shergill was totally unnecessary and his dialogues didn't make any sense.
Overall (6/10): It could have been much better effort to bring to front a legitimate medical health problem that is unnecessarily considered a taboo. Execution, as much good in the first half, is totally out of place in the rest of the movie.