Luka Chuppi
Year: 2019
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Karthik Aryan, Kirti Sanon, Aparshakti Khurana, Pankaj Tripathi, Vinay Pathak

North Indian small-town conservative mentality and the light-hearted themes poking fun at those beliefs…it has been a quite successful formula in recent times. Luka Chuppi uses the ‘Live-in relationship’ as the main theme in a Mathura-Gwalior based plot. It is a trope Shuddh Desi Romance had already used earlier.

A star reporter on a Mathura-based local TV station (Karthik Aryan) falls in love with a comely intern, a daughter (Kriti Sanon) of a right-wing politician (Vinay Pathak). While her father is busy beating and shaming the romantic couples, this ‘forward’ daughter proposes a live-in relationship to her suitor. In Gwalior, they start ‘living in’ but pretend to be married. The real problem starts when their families come to know of their ‘marriage’!

The problem with Luka Chuppi is that it tries to be an intelligent comedy but has a dumb script. The characters and situations are half-baked, and the humor is mostly forced. The lead actors deliver passable performances and the talented side-cast is wasted through poor character development. The so-called social commentary- about importance of traditional marriages and the inevitability of live-in relationships in current times- is totally unconvincing.

Rating:

2 stars