Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Aryan is not able to find a perfect life partner. He meets a perfect girl, Sifra, during an official assignment in the US and falls in love with her only to discover later that it’s an impossible love story.

My Take – While we have seen many films centered around artificial intelligence (AI), both pro and against, both humorously and seriously, this latest Maddock Films and Jio Studios feature from first time writer-director duo Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah aims to offer an unique take on the concept of human interaction with robots, somewhere on the lines of filmmaker Spike Jonze‘s Her (2013).

With an unconventional romantic relationship at its center, delivering a quirky blend of science fiction and family drama in one package.

Backed by standout performances, humor and good music, the weirdly long title notwithstanding, the end result proves to be a simple entertaining fare. With its biggest appeal lying in Shahid Kapoor and Maddock mascot Kriti Sanon‘s smashing on-screen chemistry.

Sure, it is mostly silly and does not go into anything complex, however, the film’s straightforward set up comes as a breath of fresh air considering how uber-nationalistic loud massy films have been the taste of the town the past year, and the effortless sight of pretty people singing, dancing, and romancing feels like a throwback to the brand of escapism Hindi cinema is synonymous with.

The story follows Aryan Agnihotri (Shahid Kapoor), a robotics engineer based in India, working closely with Urmila (Dimple Kapadia), his maternal aunt and an established e-robotics scientist based in the USA. With the hope of making him a part of a new program, she invites him to her facility where he meets her manager Sifra (Kriti Sanon) and the two hit it off almost instantly.

However, their whirlwind romance hits a massive speed bump when Urmila reveals that Sifra is an android and that she is the aforementioned project that Urmila and her team have been working on. Outraged for being used as lab test, a heart-broken Aryan soon returns home and agrees to fulfill his obsessed and panic-stricken family’s wish to see him married.

But realizing that he still feels drawn towards Sifra, he convinces Urmila to send her to India so that she can go through the ultimate test – surviving a big, crazy Indian family in a marriage setting.

The film’s story is simple but effective with Sifra and Aryan’s burgeoning romance being the center of the breezy concept. It moves into a quirky territory in the second half, mainly as the family is kept in the dark about Sifra’s reality, and leads to multiple scenes of humorous and dramatic situations.

The directors mainly mine humor from Sifra’s tendency to take everything literally and act accordingly. The film does seem to touch upon how Sifra is viewed as the ideal daughter in law and the perfect wife because she listens to every command and every slight deviation can be chalked down to her being ‘influenced by America’.

When Sifra, who is still a human woman to the family’s eye, cooks with both her hands, they marvel at her efficiency and Aryan only offers to ‘help’ because he wants to keep his secret. Even as the entire family marvels at how Sifra managed to cook a meal for the entire family so fast, she is still the one serving the food.

Yes, it moves into weird territory when a different man finds out that Sifra is a robot, and his first thought is to make a move on her while she doesn’t fight back. Once again, commentary of how the man decides to use his ‘power’ in that situation to exploit the ‘feminine’ is evident but is overshadowed by the hero coming in to save the day. You can’t help but wonder if this is a messaging the film is putting forward or you’re conjuring up because it’s that obvious.

The film’s best moments come from Sifra malfunctioning. When she does finally defy the authority of her male admin, she becomes terrifying. The music is catchy and it gives Shahid Kapoor a lot of scope to show us his signature dance moves. The VFX in the film is also commendable, especially the introductory scenes to the robot lab.

Nevertheless, the film is largely functional on the basis of Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon’s performances. Kriti Sanon impresses with her portrayal. Her poker-faced robotic act and on-cue laughter are hilarious, and delivers every scene where she glitches in the human world with aplomb. And yes, she does look like absolutely stunning.

Shahid Kapoor breezes through the role of an irreverent guy hopelessly in love. He is charming to a fault and manages to bring out the quirks in his characters in a way that makes the exaggerated seem genuinely funny. In their limited screen time, Dharmendra and Dimple Kapadia leave the expected mark.

In supporting roles, Ashish Verma, Rakesh Bedi, Anubha Fatehpuria, Rajesh Kumar, Brijbhushan Shukla, Raashul Tandon and Grusha Kapoor are a treat to watch. On the whole, ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’ is a charming sci-fi rom com bolstered by Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon‘s smashing on-screen chemistry.