Dream Girl 2 Review: Dear Ayushmann Khurrana, David Dhawan Called And He Wants His Script Back

‘Dream Girl’, the first film Raaj Shaandilyaa directed in 2019, introduced an engaging storyline to the audience, and they readily embraced it despite its numerous shortcomings.

New Delhi: Ayushmann Khurrana undoubtedly sought revenge on us for not graciously watching his films, such as 'An Action Hero' (2022) or even 'Gulabo Sitabo' (2020), which were his finest works. He is now shrinking back into his shell because we let him down when he ventured outside of his comfort zone. In turn, ‘Dream Girl 2’ is now out there. For Khurrana’s fans, this is bad news.

The actor, who challenged the prevailing narratives of Bollywood films with his social message dramedies and entered the scene more like a storm than a breath of fresh air, has been riding the vehicle long enough to have drained up all the fuel by this point. Therefore, the faux 'wokeness' of his screenplays (even with an extensive disclaimer like the one Dream Girl 2 has) is not enough to make one sit through some juvenile quips, crash humour, and under-the-belt puns.

‘Dream Girl’, the first film Raaj Shaandilyaa directed in 2019, introduced an engaging storyline to the audience, and they readily embraced it despite its numerous shortcomings. After four (long) years that witnessed the rise of truly groundbreaking OTT content and a shift in viewership in the post-Covid era, Khurrana needed more than 'nazakat' and two oranges stuffed in his bra to get glowing reviews.

Shaandilyaa brings back Ayushmann as Karam (and Pooja) but takes it up a notch. After starting as a quick hustle to make money for her indebted father Jagjit (Annu Kapoor), things have now gone out of hand enough for Karam to don lehengas and wigs and start dancing in bars. 

Ananya Panday shows up as Pari, Karam's love interest, replacing Nushrratt Bharuccha. And if you thought Bharuccha's role in the previous movie was decorative, just wait until you see Panday. She makes an effort to portray a loud, small-town girl, but she can't shake her SoBo demeanour. However, the two lovers wish to get married, and in the most clichéd plot twist, the heroine's father sets up a hurdle. He tells Karam to acquire more than just ‘roti, kapda, aur makaan’, because only then would he be ready for ‘kanyadaan’ (just to get you on board with the film's lousy gags).

In an effort to figure out a way to get rich, Karam asks for the advice of his best friend Smiley (Manjot Singh), who gets him a job at Sona's (Vijay Raaz) bar. Smiley proposes another scheme just as we are adjusting to the unsettling scenes of Pooja luring Sona. He wants to marry Sakina, but her father, Abu Saleem (Paresh Rawal), has a different set of demands. Only when her brother Shah Rukh (Abhishek Banerjee), who is 'depressed' after losing the love of his life, marries, they can tie the knot.

The director introduces ample subplots in a movie that runs for more than 130 minutes, and he eventually forgets about them. While Karam is preoccupied with concealing his identity while staying away from his now-husband Shah Rukh, he unintentionally catches the attention of the men in his vicinity, namely Sona (Vijay Raaz), Tiger Pandey (Ranjan Raj), Abu Saleem's step-son Shoukiya (Rajpal Yadav), and even his sister Jumani (Seema Pahwa). We won't go into breaking down the sub-plots that even Shaandilyaa struggled to bring together smoothly. However, 'Dream Girl 2' ends up being a sloppy muddle solely due to the narrative's stacked plot twists, which pop up every five minutes or so.

The seasoned actors are wasted in portraying a character that they undoubtedly find absurd while acting, which is tedious and dull to behold. The screenplay is bursting with foul humour, ranging from fat shaming to slut shaming. Unfortunately, after watching recent flicks on digital platforms, the Ayushmann Khurrana movie turns out to be merely a modernised version of a 90s crash comedy. One cannot make the argument that the actor's performance was the saving grace. Even though Khurrana pushes extremely hard to bring out emotions in the scenes (and it shows), it sometimes feels as though he himself lacks faith in his character. In a nutshell, if anyone plans on making a remake of Aunty No. 1, we have already got it in the guise of 'Dream Girl 2'.