De De Pyaar De 2 Movie Review: Ajay Devgn and Rakul Preet Singh’s meet-the-parents comedy has its moments

De De Pyaar De 2 Movie Review:

When does one start intellectualising a Bollywood rom-com? Once you stop enjoying it. Watching De De Pyaar De 2 can be described as an experience of taking a rollercoaster ride, you start feeling the seats are wobbly once it slows down. The first part of the series, when it came out in 2019, featuring Ajay Devgn trying to work it out with a much-younger Rakul Preet Singh and with the powerhouse Tabu playing his ex-wife, was a silly, enjoyable film. Although it felt like a warped way of shifting the narrative on the age-gap debate in Hindi films by making it part of the narrative, you played along. This time round, however, the game gets tiring.

Director: Anshul Sharma

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh, R Madhavan. Gautami Kapoor, Jaaved Jaaferi and Meezaan Jaffri

The sequel picks up from where we left the 2019 film. May-December couple Ayesha (Rakul) and Ashish (Ajay) have another hurdle to cross. After encountering the latter’s ex-wife and kids, it’s time to meet the parents. Ayesha’s folks Rakesh and Anju are played by R Madhavan and Gautami Kapoor. It’s some smart casting as Ajay was saving his daughter last year from Madhavan in Shaitaan (2024) and it is fun to witness how the tables now have turned. But the film can’t help but dilute the effect by spelling it out. Inevitably, you get a comical scene where ‘vashikaran’ (hypnotisation) is part of the punchline. It was more pleasing to witness Gautami in the role of a concerned, often diplomatic, mother, a performance similar to the one she recently gave in The Ba***ds of Bollywood.

Ayesha’s parents often parrot that they are liberal but the possibility of having a son-in-law who might just be a year or two younger than them is testing their modernity. It’s amusing to see such self-professed progressives losing it. It is expressed via some laugh-out-loud scenes and one-liners which land. The film starts off well but soon goes into this hormonal imbalance. There are strange tonal shifts. One moment it’s all fun and games and the next has dad Rakesh telling his daughter Ayesha that he will make her partner “disappear.” “Humour is what happens when truth is told quicker and more directly than we are used to,” DDPD2 takes this George Saunders quote as the gospel and you have characters firing comebacks over each other. The idea is to generate comedy out of the characters’ frustration in a situation. It works till your senses get weary of scenes which feel like anxiety attacks.

The film loses steam quickly and starts taking strange creative leaps, desperately trying to find some sense in the unfolding events. Chaotic fun soon morphs into pure chaos. Ajay Devgn’s passive acting is also of no help. It is better suited for the role of a gangster and comes across as indifferent in a romantic-comedy. He spends most of his screen time giving side smiles and playing the guy who believes that if it requires effort, it’s not true love. He gets cushioning though, in Jaaved Jaaferi’s entertaining performance as the friend-cum-therapist and Rakul’s firecracker energy which often borders on going overboard. Perfect balance, however, is achieved by Madhavan who plays daddy cool turned cruel with a charming ease.

DDPD2 completely goes off the rails in the second half and becomes a theatrical showcase for the talents of Jaaferi’s son Meezaan. He plays Adi, the quintessential son of a family friend whose sole purpose is to woo Rakul’s Ayesha and give competition to Ajay’s Ashish. Meezaan, however, convincingly does his good-boy routine. He matches steps with his father (Jaaferi), romances like a cheap imitation of SRK and also gives a little dose of comedy. The film’s main problem though is not a middling performance but the fact that it goes into an abyss where every plot possibility seems fair game. There are plans and counter plans and the twists are akin to an Abbas-Mustan presentation. DDPD 2 is unable to contain the strange narrative floodgates it opens, whose resolution comes unconvincing and disjointed. The climax is so drab and long-drawn that, like its male leads, I too might have developed some grey hair of my own.

DDPD 2 is enjoyable if you give in to its demand of permanent suspension of disbelief. Good performers like Jaaferi and Madhavan start feeling stuck in a bad skit. Luv Ranjan’s writing, however, has come a long way since his Pyaar ka Punchnama days. His female characters enjoy more agency and not only the kind which villainises them. I enjoyed that Rakul’s Ayesha teaches a thing or two to the saviour men around her, but that lesson comes amidst a lot of noise. DDPD 2 is a rollercoaster ride whose idea of entertainment is going round and round on the same route. Giddy fun at first but then just nausea.