Dream Girl 2: Everything that's wrong with the Ayushmann Khurrana, Ananya Panday starrer film

Ayushmann Khurrana is one of the few actors in Hindi film industry who’s not only woke, but is also extremely careful about the kind of projects he picks up. He knows his responsibility as a beloved actor and a celebrated public figure and realises what he does on the screen (and off it) has a huge impact on the viewers. His envious repertoire of films - including the likes of Vicky Donor, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, Badhaai Ho, Bala, Article 15, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, and Doctor G - helped establish him as an everyman, who’s not only battling some social norms but is also championing the causes these movies aimed to address. It won’t be wrong to say that his films have become a sub-genre itself where an important social issue, or topics that are usually brushed under the carpet, are tackled head-on. The USP of the Ayushmann Khurrana genre of movies lies in the fact that they attempt to not just entertain, but also educate the masses, often (if not always) in the guise of a light-hearted film.

So, when we watched the trailer of Ayushmann’s latest offering Dream Girl 2, a spiritual sequel to his commercially hit 2019 film Dream Girl, and caught a few glimpses of Pooja – the physical embodiment of the feminine voice from Dream Girl – expectations were bound to skyrocket. There was no doubt about his capability to pull off the avatar of a woman on screen, given the fact that he has proved his mettle as an actor time and again, but as his ardent fans, we also expected to see a layered character graph in which some of the difficulties faced by women in the country will also be highlighted when the actor dons the avatar of Pooja, only to be let down after watching the film.

Instead, we just get one scene in which a drunken Karam (Ayushmann) utters something to the effect of “Jitna mushkil ladki ban na hai, uss se bhi mushkil hai ladki hona” (which loosely translates to – “It’s more difficult to be a woman, than trying to become one”). The line may sound good on paper, but there’s absolutely NOTHING in the film that actually drives this idea home. Not even one scene, situation, song, or even a joke. It just seems that the line was thrown in the screenplay in an attempt to sound woke. A web series titled Man’s World on YouTube by YFilms is a far better attempt at bringing to light what it’s like for a woman to inhabit a world dominated by men.

Honestly, the actor is not to be blamed for the same. The fault lies in the writing by Raaj Shaandilyaa and Naresh Kathooria. Raaj, who also doubles as the director of the sequel to his 2019 film, fails to realise the immense potential in the central idea of the film and everything that he could have managed to achieve with an actor of the calibre of Ayushmann, along with the immensely talented bunch of supporting actors he has managed to assemble in Dream Girl 2. It seems that the writers were so occupied with adding jokes and gags (that don’t work – but more on that in a bit) that they completely ignored the potential of what could’ve been a brilliant comedy with an apt social message, carrying forward the legacy of the Ayushmann Khurrana genre of films.

Also Read | Dream Girl 2 review: This time, Ayushmann Khurrana fails to ring our ‘Dil Ka Telephone’ with Ananya Panday

Even if the makers didn’t want to turn Dream Girl 2 into an extension of the kind of films that have a subtle social messaging and wanted to just make a comedy film, replete with jokes and gags to make people laugh, Dream Girl 2 barely succeeds in doing that as well. Through this 133-minute-long feature, we were just waiting to start laughing but sadly, not a single joke (of the many crass ones) invited as little as even a chuckle. The gags in the film can best be described as material for the next season (if it ever was to be made) of Comedy Circus – of which Raaj was the lead writer and content director. If Raaj thought that the kind of lines that worked back in the 90s would work in 2023, he is oh-so-wrong! There are lines like, “Tu woh flop picture hai jisse hum ne interval ke baad dekha hai”, “Bottle se bichhde hue dhakkan”, “Udhaar mangte mangte, maang bharne ki naubat aa gayi hai”, among others that aren’t even funny when seen in the larger scheme of things happening in the film. The only punchline that lands is the one involving a cheeky nod to Ayushmann’s Roadies stint - but that’s there in the trailer as well. We deserve better-written jokes in a comedy film today, in place of the cringe-fest that the punchlines deliver in Dream Girl 2.

The biggest problem with Dream Girl 2 is that the makers want you to believe that the film isn’t trying to preach anything and expect you to leave your brains behind when you watch it. Had they been sincere in delivering exactly that, there wouldn't have been any issue at all. Instead, they’ve sprinkled instances to brush upon topics like parents being unwilling to accept that their child is gay (read: love is love), how difficult it is to be a woman in this country, interfaith marriages, parental pressure to have a child post-marriage, mental health/depression but never really explores any of the above. Every topic is just introduced to deliver a cringe-worthy punchline that’s not even funny in most instances. The worst of the lot comes when in a scene two characters end up trivializing mental health by terming Depression a rich people’s disease. “Kabhi kisi gareeb ko dekha hai depressed hote huye,” says a key character. For heaven’s sake, it’s 2023. There’s still a long way to go in order to normalise talking about mental health issues in the country and if we have such lines in a mainstream movie headlined by stars who have an immense and loyal fan base, we only end up going decades back. We’re appalled at the fact that an actor like Ayushmann, who we’ve known to be so vocal about the social stigma attached to such issues, is actually a part of the said scene and he didn’t find it problematic enough to flag it to the makers at the time of the shoot. We expected better from him to say the least.

Another common stereotype that movies in this genre fall prey to, is trying to be funny at the expense of an overweight character. And Dream Girl 2 has two of them – both women. Just when you think at least the film doesn’t make fun of its overweight characters, Sona Bhai (Vijay Raaz) ends up doing exactly that and cracks a joke at his wife Jumani (Seema Pahwa), referring to her as a flower-pot. As if that wasn’t enough, in a scene Jumani attempts to recreate the iconic Shah Rukh Khan pose with both her arms stretched and mouth his “Agar kisi cheez ko tum shiddat se chaaho...” line which is executed in such a cringe-worthy manner that’ll end up offending every single SRK fan (us as well as Ayushmann). It’s just sad, not funny, to see the director making a complete fool out of talented actors like Seema and Vijay, while the likes of Abhishek Banerjee, Paresh Rawal, Annu Kapoor, Asrani, Manjot Singh and Rajpal Yadav are a colossal waste. The less we speak about Ananya Panday and her (ir)relevance in the film, the better it will be. 

Also Read | Dream Girl 2 on OTT: Where to watch Ayushmann Khurrana and Ananya Panday's comedy film after its theatrical run 

Half-baked sub-plots are conveniently introduced and equally conveniently forgotten. At one point, it is revealed that a character is pregnant, courtesy – a pregnancy test stick that flies off a balcony. This gives way to an elaborate charade where Pooja (Ayushmann) is assumed to be pregnant, leading to another unfunny gag involving the introduction of Sudesh Lahiri as a Godman of sorts. Both these subplots are later forgotten. We never get to know what happened to the pregnant woman. Ayushmann’s looOOong speech in the hushed climax that tries to tie all the ends together, appears to be a desperate attempt to salvage what probably will go down as the weakest film of his career. We expected better from an Ayushmann Khurrana film.

(All images, unless mentioned otherwise, via YouTube/Screengrab)