Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari review: Varun Dhawan plays himself yet again

It’s foolhardy to expect any kind of novelty from a film whose title is its entire plot. But the title of Shashank Khaitan’s new movie works because it serves as an accurate disclaimer for the 136 minutes that follow—trying too hard and still pointless.

Sunny Sanskari (Varun Dhawan) is the son of a jeweller who gets dumped by Ananya (Sanya Malhotra) for mistaking their situationship for more. Meanwhile, even though she isn’t as delulu as Sunny about her relationship status, school-teacher Tulsi Kumari (Janhvi Kapoor) also gets broken up with by her long-time boyfriend Vikram (Rohit Saraf).

Ananya and Vikram belong to wealthy families who are eager to get them hitched, but Sunny refuses to take no for an answer and drags Tulsi all the way to Udaipur to crash Ananya and Vikram’s five-star nuptials. Their plan is to fake love to make their exes jealous, enough to realise their worth and return to them.

With a story that’s been reduced to a trite cliche over the years, Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari’s only hope was the storytelling, the not-so-secret sauce that makes films sing. There was nothing new about Saiyaara either. It was how that story was told that made all the difference. But no such aligning of the stars here. Both Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014) and Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017) had their problems but of the three films that Shashank Khaitan has made with Varun Dhawan so far, Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari is indisputably the lamest, the laziest.

From Dharma’s ludicrous understanding of the middle class to building up an entire safari sequence only to crash it in the most anti-climactic way possible, very little makes sense. No matter how lavish the production design, clothes, hair and makeup or how starry the names attached to a project, nothing can make up for the lack of a watertight script and well-rounded characters. And so despite all the song, dance, razzmatazz and a surprise crowd-pleasing cameo, the craters show.

The winsome presence of Sanya Malhotra and Rohit Saraf adds weight and watchability, but they are painfully underused. So is—to my great surprise—Janhvi Kapoor. Her hyper-sexual popular image makes it difficult to see her as a plain Jane despite the film working overtime trying to portray Tulsi as one. The wicked irony is that she is her most natural when she plays pretend in the film.

Tulsi Kumari may feature in the title, but this is a Sunny Sanskari spectacle. Varun Dhawan plays himself yet again with such ease and charm, he glides through the gaping holes, turning it into a game, which, despite all the inanity, is fun to watch purely because the primary participant is having such a ball.

Dharma liberally borrows actors, references and scenes from its previous films. Karan Johar makes an appearance, too. Maniesh Paul, who played the brother of Kiara Advani’s character in Jugjugg Jeeyo (2022), is cast as a flamboyant wedding planner. After playing Ranveer Singh’s gym bro in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani (2023), Abhinav Sharma plays the hero’s friend once more.

Writers Shashank Khaitan and Ishita Moitra layer the film with a stray subplot that briefly touches upon the quiet sufferings of women married into wealthy families to add some semblance of gravitas to all the fluff and froth. But Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari is distracted and confused like its hero. It goes one way, then pivots in an entirely different direction only to change course again. Thankfully, it’s no Bawaal (2023). Considering how the mighty have fallen, that’s silver lining enough.

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