‘Jabariya Jodi’ Critics Review: Forced Humour, Mediocre Acting

‘Jabariya Jodi’ released on 9 August.

Film: Jabariya Jodi
Director: Prashant Singh
Cast: Parineeti Chopra, Sidharth Malhotra.

Here’s what the critics have to say about Jabariya Jodi:

“Sidharth Malhotra bares his teeth a lot, and Parineeti Chopra grimaces ever so often to signal her seriousness, but their characters are too wispy to leave any traces. The supporting cast, which includes Sanjay Mishra, Sheeba Chaddha and Chandan Roy Sanyal, put on their best professional faces for the course of 144 minutes. The humour is as forced as the romance, and the biggest question goes unanswered: what is the movie really trying to say?”

Nandini Ramnath, Scroll

“’Jabariya Jodi’ takes the wrecking-ball approach to filmmaking, which entails setting up a premise and quickly proceeding to pull to pieces the very next moment to make way for another listless, formless, short-lived plot detail, which is just as doomed as everything else in the film. Over 143 minutes, that leaves a hell of a lot of ugly debris around. The script, authored by Sanjeev K Jha, bears the imprint of a plethora of cooks (at least two other writers are credited for “additional screenplay”).”

Saibal Chatterjee, NDTV

“It’s hard to tell what the film really wants to be. It has several laugh-out-loud moments, one hilarious Bappi Lahiri joke and in many instances, the dialogues capture the delightfully absurd humour specific to Bihar’s milieu quite well, but the film can’t make up its mind. As a result of this, Jabariya Jodi wrestles with itself and oscillates between genres, its tone shifting so frequently that one cannot sift the humour from seriousness, heartfelt emotions from satirical moments, melodrama from self-aware hilarity.”

Ankur Pathak, Huffington Post

“Director Prashant Singh’s treatment of an important subject that is begging to be turned into a social satire bursting with local flavour, leaves the film stranded with an identity crisis.” 

Jyoti Sharma Bawa, Hindustan Times