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There’s a small scene between Vaidehi and her sister, who is about to get married, where the latter hints at a compromise – that she knows that her husband-to-be isn’t remarkable in anyway and that’s fine because, well, that’s all she’s got. It’s refreshing to know that Khaitan doesn’t do the writing for us – not at all times at least. Having said that, the film’s first half is not entirely without its merits. Because for all its attempts to show an unglamorous and true India, Badrinath Ki Dulhania, like many similar Bollywood films, is only willing to go as far, selectively showing the real, without engaging with it, without understanding where it’s coming from. These modifications in the movie, albeit not a deal breaker, do irk. This is the case with Badri too, he’s someone who’s been carefully corrected to appear pleasant enough. Even Badri and Vaidehi’s houses – with strategically placed lamps and carefully drawn curtains – look less like real places, more like shooting locations. Jhansi, similarly, is seen through Badri’s palatial haveli (which looks plush and imposing) and multiple top-down shots of the town’s square. The other is shot near a temple adjoining a lake, where Badri is on a speedboat. In this case, a small park called Seven Wonders, pretty enough to look pretty on screen, where Khaitan shoots two outdoor scenes. Instead, it looks like any other Indian small town, whose defining marker is a public recreational space.
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Khaitan’s Kota is devoid of the sweat and desperation and din of IIT aspirants. The way Jhansi and Kota look, for instance. But there’s much in Badrinath Ki Dulhania’s first half that doesn’t work. Vaidehi, however, is much more believable, and it’s not surprising, given that she’s played by Bhatt, an actor known for setting high standards for herself.
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A good actor is, of course, supposed to transcend his own social milieu and, instead, effortlessly slip into his character, but Dhawan hasn’t attained that level of artistic talent. The small-town “hum”, replacing the big city “main”, doesn’t ring true when he speaks it. Badri’s is a fascinating character, in theory, but Dhawan – whose on-screen roles, till now, have belonged to young, sophisticated and rich India (and who is himself not different in real life) – struggles to live up to his part. They aren’t necessarily vicious misogynists, for they’re ready to engage in a dialogue, accept their mistakes and, if possible, rectify them. People like Badri also have a tricky time negotiating gender politics, because their sexism is a result of their upbringing and ignorance. Most of the time, it’s not considered a big deal, because money (and what it can afford: cars, property, clothes) is visible, ideologies are not. A guy like Badri – uneducated and unsophisticated, rich and privileged – typifies a certain kind of India, where economic affluence has raced ahead of social consciousness. Vaidehi (Alia Bhatt), on the other hand, lives in Kota and aspires to be an air hostess. The film opens in Jhansi, home to the eponymous Badrinath (Varun Dhawan), the son of a rich contractor, who has only studied till the tenth grade. It certainly doesn’t, for the most part, in Shashank Khaitan’s Badrinath Ki Dulhania. The best of both worlds approach doesn’t usually work. You can either make your film pretty and escapist or regular and real. As a result, they’re less interested in recreating a space, more in appropriating it or cherry picking bits that look visually appealing and cinematic. These films are shot on locations, so the geographical spaces are real, but the people dealing with them – directors, writers, production designers, even actors – belong to the world of movies or, as it were, certain upscale parts of Mumbai. The small towns of these films, more often than not, are less real, more imagined.
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And that’s so because these films are marked by disconnect: between the real and make-believe, between life and cinema. Bollywood filmmakers backed by big production houses who set their films in small-town India often run into roadblocks.