Nadaaniyan Review: A Passably Lively But Spectacularly Shallow Rom-Com

A sham, short-term romantic dalliance in an elite, no-uniform Delhi school assumes serious overtones and flips and flops its way through predictable ups and downs. That is the crux of Nadaaniyan, a passably lively but spectacularly shallow rom-com produced by Dharmatic Entertainment for Netflix.

The strictly superficial buoyancy that the film seeks to exude is as affected as the idea that the plot revolves around. Directed by first-timer Shauna Gautam from a script by Riva Razdan Kapoor, Ishita Moitra and Jehan Handa, Nadaaniyan sputters to life only intermittently, banking on the youthful charm and energy of the young lead actors.

The film juggles sundry ideas from Karan Johar's early blockbusters (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, K3G, et al) and updates them, without much originality, for the consumption of Gen Z social media addicts who would rather die than go off the grid.

The film places aloo-gobhi in opposition to squid ink pasta, plays off Noida natives against Ivy League aspirants and sets up a flippant love story around a brainy, career-minded boy and a poor little rich girl whose parents dote on her but with a dispiriting degree of condescension.

Naadaniyan appears to address serious themes couched in frivolous narrative methods - patriarchy, family prejudice against a girl child, class divide, friendship and ambition. But with its tone being steadfastly glib, its well-meaning postulations do not quite hit home.

Debutant Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor (in her third film) are saddled with the unbearable lightness of a story that rests on vacuous contrivances built around a clash of social strata and personal predispositions.

Pia Jaisingh (Kapoor) and Arjun Mehta (Khan) live in a bubble. Their self-contained world is represented by the school they go to - Falcon High. Here, the students, togged out like ramp models, are never in a classroom except when it is time for a slanging match over the election of the school's debating team captain.

But Pia and Arjun's socioeconomic backgrounds are dissimilar. The former is super rich, if not super happy with where she is in life; the latter is a Noida doctor's son who hopes to launch a legal aid start-up.

Pia is, outwardly, the "poster princess of privilege and entitlement" but has too much going on around her for her to be at peace with herself or her two BFFs, Rhea (Apoorva Makhija) and Sahira (Aaliyah Qureishi).

Sahira is mighty upset because she suspects Pia of trying to steal her childhood crush, Ayaan Nanda (Dev Agasteya). The guy is obnoxiously supercilious and beyond detestable. So, why on earth is Sahira so smitten with him? Well, if she weren't, there would be no Nadaaniyan.

To return to the flimsy fulcrum, Pia is in desperate need of a boyfriend to save her "doston wali family" from disintegrating. Arjun, who lives with his father (Jugal Hansraj) and schoolteacher-mother (Dia Mirza) but opts for the school hostel for a semester, emerges as the answer to Pia's prayers.

At the end of a raging debate over who should lead the school into battle at an upcoming international debating championship, Arjun reveals his six-pack to the class. What his gym-toned body has got to do with winning the argument is revealed instantly - Pia passes by and catches a full view of Arjun's abs. She is transfixed.

Arjun is a newcomer but no pushover. He is a swimming champion, the debating team captain and a magnificently sorted individual who is incredibly focused on his career goals. He is perfect boyfriend-on-hire material. Pia quickly zeroes in on him and strikes a deal with him.

The fake relationship follows its own convoluted course, forcing the two 'lovers' into situations that create bad blood between Arjun and a bunch of snooty male classmates who take repeated digs at his Noida-Ghaziabad-Faridabad provenance.

The situation in Pia's home is only marginally better. The only daughter of a lawyer-father (Suniel Shetty), she is repeatedly reminded that she does not fit into the family's future plans because she isn't a boy. Her mother (Mahima Chaudhry), too, is emotionally on a sticky wicket, having frittered away her life craving for a son from a husband who couldn't care less.

That does not mean Pia is bereft of parental love. But it comes wrapped in ingrained gender bias. Her grandfather (Barun Chanda) aims sarcastic barbs at her. Patriarchy is always only a snide quip away for the Jaisingh elders.

The film bungs in a couple of protracted dramatic huddles - one centred on Pia's classmates assembled in a happening watering-hole where things go south in no time, the other pans out around the dining table of the Jaisingh home - to establish the deep-rooted social differences between the self-assured Arjun and the Jaisingh family and their friends.

The puerile central premise of the film is aggravated by the sweeping generalisations that play up the collision between opposing temperaments and worldviews articulated in a jerry-built crucible where neither the locations - the classrooms and the school corridors, the homes, the markets - nor the people who inhabit them come anywhere near ringing true.

They float about in a vacuum that obstructs a genuine sense of place and ethos. The only associations that emerge from the tale are with the universe that the uber-rich Jaichands of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham occupied. Of course, the Jaisinghs are a significantly watered-down version of the brood we encountered in the turn-of-the-millennium movie.

Just a random thought: if Pooja of K3G was Poo, what would Pia of Nadaaniyan be? Would she be...? The name would rhyme with be, but let us not go there.

For good measure, the Falcon High principal is Braganza Malhotra, played by an aptly hammy Archana Puran Singh. She evokes memories of Miss Braganza and Anupam Kher's Mr Malhotra from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Her incessant prattle here is peppered with texting abbreviations - a nod to the times we live in.

The glow around Khushi Kapoor and Ibrahim Ali Khan - it would be unfair to expect the duo to do all the heavy lifting and not show the strain - is dulled by the affected sheen of the film. The two actors do not exactly flunk the test, but they do not come out with flying colours either.

Is Nadaaniyan WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) fare? Not really. It is happy skimming the surface of all it surveys. A film about the indiscretions and misadventures of teenage love should have been far more diverting.