But, so deep is the regressive attitude that the filmmakers seem oblivious and ignorant of the stereotyping. I even tried to give it the benefit of doubt, that maybe it was their style of satire. But, the flavour seemed to be especially anti-woman. I tried very hard to treat it as just a story between two friends and one’s significant other.

This and the thick woman-bashing attitude of Luv Ranjan’s film is getting tiring. Not to mention the petty, dining table politics. Predictability to the shot level makes the film have a Hindi TV serial like quality. At least 7-8 times in the second half, I caught myself thinking, “now, she is going to make that eye gesture that says she is unfazed and has a smart move up her sleeve” or “now, he is going to look at her from that mirror” or “don’t tell me they are going to look at each other with that smug smile as if no one else is watching” or “please-please-please don’t make her wink with a death-stare in slow-motion in the next scene”. It doesn’t help here that you can predict the film-making. But that bit of curiosity is also dealt with ‘meh’ twists. Of course, to the extent that you are already in the theater watching the film, and we don’t know what they are going to do next, you are interested in finding out. Once you figure that this character can go to any extent to get their way, they become predictable. It’s just that, I don’t find their stories interesting. It is not that I don’t know that manipulative people exist in the real world. To begin with the premise of characters manipulating their friends and significant others is not very engaging. The writing is just happy sticking to what it has built on in previous films. The resultant back and forth between the friend and the fiancée are just about interesting. It ought to be enough for us that the possessive friend thinks so.

Why she is manipulative? Your guess is as good as mine.

Possessive friend becomes manipulative because his friend’s fiancée is a schemer and manipulative.

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