Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Vikrant Massey, Rhea Chakraborty, Seema Biswas, Felix Shindraj

 Director: Mohit Suri

 Production: Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Mohit Suri, Chetan Bhagat

 Written by: Chetan Bhagat

 Genre: Romance

 Duration: 2h 15m

 

Half Girlfriend is directed by Mohit Suri and is based off Chetan Bhagat’s infamous book of the same name. The film is a love story between Madhav Jha, a lad from Jharkhand and an upper class Delhi high-society girl named Riya Somani. The movie does not stray far away from the book but fails to deliver. The question that’s probably on everyone’s mind is- is it that easy to slip past guards and climb the India Gate whenever one feels overwhelmed?

The story kicks off with Madhav (Arjun Kapoor) who enrolls himself in a quite fictitious college named St. Stephens where somehow students looks like they are downright in their late 20’s or early 30s. Boy spots girl in a typical style while he ogles at Riya (Shraddha Kapoor) as she plays basketball and sings in an empty auditorium, too scared to speak to her since his English isn’t top notch. Soon she grows fond of the Bihari kid and they play basketball together and go for movies, Hindi dubbed ones. Their romance grows, brutally slowly, and she tells him about her dreams of singing in a New York Bar. But then things get hilariously stupendous when the whole “half girlfriend” bit comes into play. It’s clearly a synonym for friend zone, although they did sort of kiss at one point of time. Madhav’s friends grow skeptical of their romance and this illogical term and try to convince him that it’s a farce. Due to a misguided misunderstanding, Madhav ends up hurting Riya and finally, they breakup (but they weren’t dating). Riya, after a long avoidance period, which is portrayed in sloppy montages, ends up getting married. Madhav goes back to his hometown, sad, and tiredness of clichés sweeps the cinema hall.

 

A few years later they meet and Madhav now wants to build a school and a whole women rights and empowerment angle creeps into this plot. Riya is now divorced and Madhav tries to give this relationship another shot under the guise that he needs help for a speech for Bill Gates. Yes, you read it right, Bill Gates is in this movie, at least a CGI emotionless dummy that literally has only one expression and has a darker complexion than Indians.

Half girlfriend is a story of two dimwitted people who can’t deal with life. Madhav, who is unable to move on and overcome his fears of speaking or learning another language, keeps nodding and smiling only to come off as simple and kind, is a complete and utter let down. Arjun Kapoor did not seem to fit into this character at all. Shraddha Kapoor who is arguably not good at speaking English that well, plays a rather dull character with little to no personality. The characters at the start of the movie looked exactly the same even after 2-3 years with no change whatsoever. One would have expected a change in behaviour after a point in time but the director chooses to stick lazy unrealism. The actor’s voice over’s were clearly not synced and every time Shraddha picked up the guitar, it was evident that acting and singing was not happening there. The sudden and abrupt twists were uncalled for and clichés were hiding in every nook and corner. Side characters like Madhav’s mother, his friends and Riya’s parents did not give this movie any weight too.

 

Overall the director tries hard to sell a youthful romance but fails to see that the youth don’t stay youth for long and we are capable of joining the dots. The women empowerment aspect and breaking of language barriers were pushed back only to highlight an unintelligent and unsatisfactory romance.