Bareilly Ki Barfi Review - This One's A Rather Sweet Watch

In 1995, Aditya Chopra made Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and introduced us to the glossy world outside the subcontinent. 22 years later, he and his contemporary, Karan Johar, still hold the philosophies that they did all those years back. Movies are an escape and what’s a better escape from your boring life than some gorgeous NRIs? That logic is what films like Lipstick Under My Burkha and most recently, Bareily Ki Barfi, aim to decimate.

Films can be an escape, but the reality can too be fun to watch, Indian filmmakers like Aanand L. Rai, Hansal Mehta, Prakash Jha and even Alankrita Shrivastava say. Bareilly Ki Barfi is a light-hearted, sweet film starring Kriti Sanon, Rajkumar Rao and Ayushmann Khurana. The film written by Dangal-director Nitesh Tiwari and directed by his wife, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari boasts a witty script and some fantastic sets.

The film follows Bitti, played by Kriti Sanon, who is an odd one out in the town of Bareilly. She break dances, drinks, smokes, stays out late and thinks she’s the only girl trying to break rules in all of Bareilly until she stumbles upon a book known as Bareilly Ki Barfi. She figures out that the girl in that book is exactly like her so she takes it upon herself to find the author of the book. This leads her to the owner of the printing press that published the book, Chirag, played by Ayushman Khurrana. Turns out Chirag is the actual author who for his own reasons used Pritam Vidrohi’s name, who is played by Rajkumar Rao.

Kriti gives her career best in the film, but something that had such Bareilly like sets falters because she looks too perfect. Kriti is out of place. The rest look like Bareilly inhabitants but she looks like she’s just walked out of a magazine. However, she’s not wearing make up. Not even in the most vanity-like scenes of the film. Ayushman Khurana is also very good, but props are to Rajkumar Rao who wins the game yet again. He’s funny, his Pritam’s stutter is spot-on and he’s given a fantastic character.

Secondary characters in the form of Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Bhargava are fantastic but Rohit Choudhary walks away with highest honours. His character is witty, charming and funny. He’s like Divyendu Sharma in Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, only he gets better lines. The film’s sets are fantastic and Javed Akhtar’s nice and cartoonish voice-over make it fun. In the end, Bareilly Ki Barfi is light, fun and humourous and only reaches a serious point for 5-10 minutes.

It’s a fun comedy that you might forget at the end, but hey, I had a great time laughing at gags like a sweet shop used to be known as LOVELY SWEETS but came to be known as LAVLA sweets when the Ee ki matraa fell off in the rain. On a scale of 1-5, Bareilly KI Barfi is … 4 out of 5. I really enjoyed it. You will too. The first half will test your patience, the second half is nice, seamless and has strong performances consistently.