Despite Earnest Effort, 'Ginny Weds Sunny' Ends Up Being Cliched & Predictable

To be clear, I am not expecting any major twists and turns in a quintessential rom-com but I don’t want to be served mediocrity too. Ginny Weds Sunny is all about catering to clichés, stereotypes and formulaic storytelling where even though it gives you sparks at different instances but never rises above it.

There is such a dearth of rom-coms (good ones) in Bollywood  -  a statement that is true and a statement that continues to be true. A genre that has been constantly challenged upon and even though there have been noble attempts to change that, it still isn’t enough. That is what Netflix’s Ginny Weds Sunny also ends up being.

To be clear, I am not expecting any major twists and turns in a quintessential rom-com but I don’t want to be served mediocrity too. Ginny Weds Sunny is all about catering to clichés, stereotypes and formulaic storytelling where even though it gives you sparks at different instances: it never rises above.

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Sunny (Vikrant Massey) is a good-hearted, goofy yet lovable boy who, on coaxing from Ginny’s mother (Ayesha Raza) decides to pursue Ginny (Yami Gautam) with the hopes of getting married. It actually is such an interesting premise which could have transpired into so much fun. But it ends up deciding to only work with tried-and-tested instances. Over the years, stalking in Bollywood has been glorified and that’s always problematic but for some reason, they doesn’t seem to get over it even today. Even though, there is a sense of self-awareness (where Sunny realizes what he is doing is actually wrong) but that is later used as a tool of comedy. 

However, the biggest problem of Ginny Weds Sunny isn’t the Punjabi stereotypes or supremely clichéd storytelling; but the problem is that inspite of all of this which might deem as funny to many, it actually isn’t. There is nothing novel about the film, and in fact, the entire graph of the film is so predictable that it ends up looking like a mash of all the rom-coms you have seen over the years.

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Not that there aren’t good moments. Some moments in the film are genuinely funny -  be it the Sunny’s dad with almost deadpan comic delivery or Gurpreet Saini’s Sumit; but my favorite moment and more so a visual that will always stay with me is how both Ginny and Sunny’s parents are inside a swimming pool, fully clothed, cribbing about their children’s messed up love story sipping on alcohol. There is something inherently hilarious about it. But such moments are too few and far to make up for a lackluster entire product.

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When it comes to Massey, I am just incredibly glad that the fine actor he is and has proved himself over and over; someone visualized him as the full blown leading Hindi film man who gets to do everything – dancing, chasing the heroine and even having the patent wedding twist in the end. While Massey doesn’t entirely manage to work with the Delhi accent, he does enough to make Sunny lovable and you even root for him. Gautam is a fine actor and it is a shame that it isn’t being explored much till now. She shines as Ginny and even though her character is given some rather stupid things to work with, Gautam manages to do well overall. She is an actor who deserves more films and more attention. The true stars, however are Raza as Ginny’s mother, who is intentionally made to be loved and hated at the same time; and Sunny’s father, Pappi Sethi (Rajiv Gupta).

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There is nothing new about Ginny Weds Sunny and while that is usually okay in a rom-com, the actual problem with the film that it is, in fact, so predictable that it stops being enjoyable despite it’s earnest effort.

Rating - ** (2/5)

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Vikrant Massey Thumbnail

Vikrant Massey

Yami Gautam Thumbnail

Yami Gautam

Ayesha Raza Thumbnail

Ayesha Raza

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Netflix

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