'Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai' Review: An Irritating, Unfunny Showcase Of Silly

Varun Dhawan in a still from Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

David Dhawan’s Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai has a ratio problem. The ratio of unsurprisingly unapologetic silliness and low-hanging fruit stupidity to ‘funny’ or even mildly tolerable gags and ‘jokes’ is way off. That is to say, there’s hardly any.

I’m all for Dhawan’s brand of cinema of chaos. But when the bits don’t land, and it feels like there’s next to no effort made in the material (let alone the filmmaking), the result is a source of embarrassment for all involved, where the only real loser is us.

The joke would be on me if I dared use words like “plot” or “story” or "narrative" or “cohesion” here. But I’ll take a stab at breaking down what happens in this dead-on-arrival comedy. I can’t even call it a nothingburger because that still implies some degree of empty, comfort-movie calories.

The few ‘laughs’ that Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai managed to extract from me didn’t stem from joy or enjoyment. They were the sound of submission and defeat, where you’re either laughing at the film or at yourself. It stops being clear after a point.

If anything, the few sincere giggles that emerge are during the ‘emotional’, ‘dramatic’ scenes rather than the ‘comedic’ ones.

Varun Dhawan Is A Struggle To Watch

Varun Dhawan (who’s never been this much of a struggle to watch) is wedding photographer Jass Ahuja. The film begins with him going through ‘emotional’ divorce proceedings with his wife Baani (an awkward Mrunal Thakur), after five years of marriage. When the judge asks why, she says it’s not because he doesn’t love her. It’s because he ‘loves her too much’.

Mrunal Thakur in a still from Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

He constantly insists on having unprotected sex with her (consent is the only consistent punchline in this film). But it’s okay. It’s not creepy, the film seems to say, because all Jass wants is to be a father.

Which totally justifies the fact that, at one point, she literally has to kick him off her when he ignores her saying no (of course, the moment is played for a laugh). Anyway, Baani wants to focus on her career as a CEO (of what, we don’t know).

A flashforward then takes us ahead two months. Jass has now, for some reason, moved to London, where a random woman named Preet (Pooja Hegde) comes over to make out with him before even introducing herself.

Pooja Hegde in a still from Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

Another flashback takes us back a month to how these two met (so that’s a flashforward of two months and a flashback of one month in a film that’s constantly forcing us to do Nolan math).

Jass apparently saved Preet from drowning, so now when she bumps into him all these weeks later, she’s naturally in love with him, and they start a relationship. Jimmy Shergill (the only actor who manages to keep his dignity intact in this movie) is her Haryanvi gangster older brother who forces them to get married as soon as possible.

But we haven’t got to the crux of the story yet. Jass has managed to get both women pregnant—Baani on the night of their divorce, and now Preet, who seems overjoyed at having a child with the man she met yesterday.

Dhawan’s movie, then, follows the ‘comedy of errors’ in Jass keeping the two women away from each other and ensuring his double life isn’t discovered, adding to the undying male fantasy-gasm genre. Also, Manish Paul is his best friend who supports his antics.

Peak Male Fantasy

What passes for humour here is the equivalent of an all-uncles WhatsApp group becoming sentient and deciding to write a script (ChatGPT? ChachaGPT?).

It’s considered funny to make fun of the groom at a wedding because he’s overweight. It’s also considered funny for the hero to then break the groom’s nose because said hero is attracted to the bride. Just like it’s considered funny for Manish Paul to go all limp-wrist and effeminate to save Jass when one of the two women finds the handbag of the other in his apartment.

It’s interesting that we associate these movies with a pitch, a “style”, a language of loud, squeaky slapstick chaos. When, in fact, that style is only ever interested in making fun of women, minorities, and body shaming. It's as if they don't know how to joke about anything else.

In one scene, Manoj Pahwa (in a brief cameo) is showing a class of students how to perform CPR (don’t ask), and I swear to you, even the (female) CPR dummy looks visibly uncomfortable, as if it knows it's meant for better things.

These films thrive on being a passable blur of sound effects and mediocrity (the film is terribly shot, looks dated, and the dubbing ensures that the sound and visuals operate independently of each other).

Jimmy Shergil in a still from Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

They aim high for the bottom of the barrel. They exist to be forgotten. Terms like “time pass”, “one-time watch” and “paisa vasool” are considered success. I don’t know what’s more surprising—that these movies still get made, that we’re made to accept them, or that we’re still, somehow, shaken when they’re this terrible.

My brain shut down after a point, and the last leg of the film remains a haze. The last thing I remember was Jass delivering an impassioned monologue about how he’s the real victim of this entire scenario.

And then, there’s the Varun Dhawan of it all. Too long have we been all too forgiving of this brand of Varun. Through his likeability and earnestness, he seems to get away with it being fundamentally unwatchable at this pitch.

It’s a uniquely irritating performance that isn’t able to land the jokes or bring the conviction to even remotely sell an animated world like this.

We saw signs of it in the disastrous Baby John (surely the idea of him playing a charismatic masala hero is an absolute no-brainer?). If anything, his only winning recurring gag here has nothing to do with him. It’s a series of flashbacks where terrible AI has been used to de-age him to a teenage boy. It’s so shoddily done that it’s funny.

Varun/Jass makes a Bhediya joke, inadvertently reminding us of the last time he was actually enjoyable to watch on screen (a few decent moments in Border 2 notwithstanding). I’ve always stubbornly maintained that I’m a fan. At this point, I’m just struggling to remember why.

Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai releases in theatres on 5 June.

(Suchin Mehrotra is a critic and film journalist who covers Indian cinema for a range of publications. He's also the host of The Streaming Show podcast on his own YouTube channel. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)