Nadaaniyan (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – A privileged Delhi socialite hires a middle-class student to pose as her boyfriend to maintain her social status. Their pretense becomes complicated when genuine feelings develop between them.

My Take – Though filmmaker Karan Johar is the proud owner of quite a good number of classic and beloved Bollywood titles, both as a director and producer. He shall always remain immortalized for redefining the romance genre for an entire school/college generation with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). Something which he kind of tried once again with the super-frothy Student Of The Year (2012), which launched Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Siddharth Malhotra into the Hindi film industry.

His latest production, helmed by debutant Shauna Gautam, loosely seemed to be attempting to do the same. Boasting a visually appealing familiar to Dharma aesthetic, this Netflix release too finds a cast of young and promising actors in a lighthearted romance narrative set against the backdrop of a prestigious high school.

But, while the resulting film manages to be more of a laid back entertainer that keeps you engaged, it also ultimately falls short of its potential, mainly due to its terrible writing.

Acting as the launch-pad of Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh’s son Ibrahim Ali Khan, unlike old-school romances that leaned heavily on poetic expressions of love, the film refreshingly embraces a more contemporary, approach, however, due to the presence of a lackluster screenplay and the absence of a fiery central chemistry, the whole rambling situation-ship doesn’t quite land as intended.

To make matters worse, the faults of this film is have only fueled into the exhausting talks surrounding nepotism, which seems to be getting crueler by the day. Criticizing one’s acting is one thing, but mixing that up with digs at their physical features and spilling venom just because they belong to a certain (even if it is privileged) background doesn’t seem like a fair or right stance.

Also, filmmakers need to understand that there remains a huge appetite for charming boy-meets-girl stories filled with young love, misunderstandings, heartbreak and happily-ever-afters. In an increasingly stressful world, lighthearted escapism is exactly what we need, something that is not meant to be taken too seriously, and only if they had worked on this one more sincerely (instead of lazily) it could have hit that sweet-spot.

The story follows Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor), a rich and popular student enrolled at the affluent Delhi-based Falcon High, who finds herself in a sudden falling out with her closest friends, Sahira (Aaliyah Qureishi) and Rhea (Apoorva Makhija), over a misunderstanding about another guy’s unwanted advances towards her.

Determined to get of this unnecessary soup, Pia ends up lying about a fake boyfriend to throw off their attention. Someone she finding in the form of Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan), a new transfer middle-class scholarship student, who is an overachiever in every sense and has his sights set on becoming the debate team captain.

Hired for 25k a week, the plan is simple and to keep everyone guessing, for a soft launch on social media. And while everything does start off smoothly, the trouble begins when real feeling begin to sneak in between the two.

Here, director Shauna Gautam immediately draws our attention towards modern love’s biggest dilemma: the obsession to document everything virtually, while losing the ability to communicate any real feelings. Amidst the basic crux of their fake relationship story, she even drops in familiar Dharma elements like a broken family, a mother who wants to get her daughter married into a royal family, parents that are too cool with their kids’ romantic partners, an all rounder boy who gets distracted because of a female, jealousy, and tonnes of misunderstandings.

On paper, this should work, but the execution and the script written by Ishani Moitra (Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani), Jehan Handa, and Riva Razdan Kapoor, doesn’t do the set up justice. Sure, the film is never not engaging, but the storytelling and emotions feel shallow and filtered. Even the rich girl-poor boy trope doesn’t work here for many reasons.

The biggest among them is to pass off Arjun as a poor or a lower middle-class boy from Noida. Someone whose father is a private doctor, and mother a teacher at the most expensive school in Delhi.

These are all vignettes from the Karan Johar‘s school of film-making, but to pull it off the narrative needs conviction. Just throwing a few woke ideas, bringing in a point of gender equality, the patriarchal mindset in wealthy families and middle-aged divorce do not make it appealing.

Yes, I understand such kind of films don’t intend to be thought-provoking pieces of cinema but even a breezy glamorous chick-flick needs some work. As a viewer, you should be able to laugh, sigh, and root for the leads staying invested in their antics enough to simply enjoy the ride.

Even though she isn’t given good material to work with, there is something inherently earnest about Khushi Kapoor that goes beyond working on her acting skills. She particularly does well in the more emotionally taxing scenes. You see genuine effort there, but the script and dialogues don’t support her.

Ibrahim Ali Khan, bearing a striking resemblance to his father Saif Ali Khan, makes a pleasant acting debut here. He is easy on the eyes and likeable. He shows immense potential and 90s kids would remember how Saif himself took a while to find his footing as an actor after a string of disastrous initial films.

In supporting roles, Suniel Shetty, Dia Mirza, Jugal Hansraj, and Mahima Chaudhry, who play our leads’ parents are a delight to watch. Apoorva Makhija and Aaliyah Qureishi fare better but they don’t get enough time on screen.

Archana Puran Singh reprises her beloved and extremely memorable character Miss Braganza from the 1998 Karan Johar directorial, effectively suggesting that this film exists in the same universe. On the whole, ‘Nadaaniyan‘ is a silly lighthearted rom com letdown by its lethargic writing.