Review of Vivah (2006) by Maaz M — 09 Sep 2016

Watched this film after it was recommended by a friend and seeing the rave reviews from industry 'experts' I though it would be entertaining.

First the good:

Excellent acting from all the actors, especially the two leads of Amrita and Shahid, and they have good chemistry between them so the scenes feel all the more real. The supporting cast had a lot of screen time which is uncommon in a love story and it wasn't overplayed so kudos to the director and script writer for that.

Now the bad, and the reason for my low score. The story itself is weak and played a lot of clichés from classic bollywood films ( any of the scenes where the two have to sneak off to talk as an example, or how quickly the characters change from shyness to comfortable). It had the over the top gratitude of the father of the bride, the benevolence of the much richer father of the groom, the illogical hatred of the aunt over her neice's beauty compared to her daughter and her husband making zero effort to address it.

Its a shame because the film could have been so much better, it feels like the script was rushed through and the actors had to do their best with it.