Vikrant Massey-Kriti Kharbanda’s ’14 Phere’ Review: An Unnecessary Entangled, Tedious Social Drama

If the objective of '14 Phere' was to bring to screens the scuffles of falling in love and choosing to have an inter-caste marriage in India, it could have been well put.

Mumbai: With a lot of expectations, when one sits down to watch one of Vikrant Massey’s movies, ’14 Phere’ proves to be a complete disaster. Helmed by Devanshu Singh, this comedy film is a confusing tale of highlighting social taboos in the context of marriage. ’14 Phere’ features Kriti Kharbanda in a female lead, who plays the character of a Jatt girl Aditi hailing from Jaipur, who falls in love with Sanjay (Vikrant Massey), a Rajput guy from Kanpur and their unnecessarily entangled ‘two weddings’.

If the objective of the film was to bring to screens the scuffles of falling in love and choosing to have an inter-caste marriage in India, it could have been well put. Even with such talented artists living the story on-screen, ’14 Phere’ fails to make you stick to your screens and leave an impact.

The movie started on a happy note of a millennial couple living together. The very first scene of the movie jogs up the memory of the opening scene of ‘Tamasha’, however, portrayed in a different way. Gauahar Khan (Zubina) and Jameel Khan (Amay) did an excellent job in playing fake parents to Aditi and Sanjay. Given how talented they both are, Vikrant and Kriti also did a great job in bringing the characters to life. The chemistry was, however, missing between them and something just did not click.

Well, everything was going good until the couple decides to do something out of the box and host two weddings just to avoid confrontation between their families, which is unrealistic. Aditi and Sanjay then set up a plan to make their wedding look like an arranged marriage and hire fake parents, played by Gauahar and Jameel. The first wedding takes place in the presence of Sanjay’s family and Aditi’s fake parents. The storyline was supposed to create some suspense after the first wedding when Sanjay’s younger cousin finds out the truth somehow, but, it rather was predictable.

Things begin to spice up at their second wedding which takes place in the presence of Aditi’s family and Sanjay’s fake parents when the former’s family comes to know about their truth. Sanjay’s real family also comes to know about their son’s second wedding and reaches the wedding venue. This unfolds a lot of drama and misunderstandings and finally, after lots of orchestration, the couple ties the knot happily with the blessings of their families.  

Overall, ’14 Phere’ is a social comedy film calling attention to social taboos - a light-hearted drama trying to kill the stigmas around inter-caste marriages in India.

Follow this space for more updates.