On paper Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz seems just like what Dr Love would have prescribed. A lonely RJ, Alfaaz (Zain Khan Durrani) with a dark past, a deep baritone, love for strays and stories about unrequited love gets a call by mistake from a bright and chirpy meme creator Archana (Geetanjali Thapa) who is fighting her own demons. A connect of sorts gets established. However it takes the entire length of a film and some misunderstandings and complications for it to reach fruition.
The characters, their situation, dilemmas and problems feel plausible but the silly little thing between them, called love, lacks spark. Far from displaying depth, passion or melancholy love remains sappy and limp, feels self-conscious than spontaneous. The film could have done with some life and energy. Perhaps the issue here is that though Onir places love squarely in a digital world—of blind dates and memes and more—love’s protocols remain all old worldly, a bad mismatch. So the lead feels hemmed in and the vivacious Thapa gets saddled with a bad make-up job. It’s Mona Ambegaonkar who shows a spunky presence in a relatively smaller role. Trivia take: both the Hindi films this Friday have stray dogs in starring roles.
Director: Onir
Cast: Zain Khan Durrani, Geetanjali Thapa, Mona Ambegaonkar
Storyline: A wrong phone call gets two troubled souls connected
Run Time: 116 Minutes