De De Pyaar De 2 is a glossy sequel that falls much behind the charm of its predecessor, lacking the freshness of it’s first part. The film sort of reminds one of Cheeni Kum quite often while watching it. This romantic comedy stumbles over uneven writing, not so funny moments and lacks emotional depth.
After having convinced his family of his choice of getting married to Ayesha Khurana (28 years old) in De De Pyaar De, Ashish Mehra the 52-year-old London-based NRI investor now embarks on seeking approval from Ayesha’s family. Though it shouldn’t have been surprising that the girl’s father is just a year older than the groom.
Proclaiming that they are “We are educated progressive people, modern cultured thinking”, yet the girls parents are not happy with her choice of marrying a man who is almost her father’s age, divorced and has 2 grown up children.
Ayesha tells Ashish not to tell anybody about his exact age, but he insists, “I am in love with you, but I cannot lie.” Is that hilarious?
Once reaching the girl’s house, there is one-upmanship between her father Rajji and Ashish, creating awkward situations among the two families. As Ayesha introduces Ashish to her parents as a slightly older person who is also divorced. Much of questioning around the bush for seeking his age, this situation is stretched with not so funny jokes.
This trend of not so funny jokes and moments becomes frequent for the rest of the film. For example, lets begin with some motivational one liner by Ashish’s psychiatric doctor friend, “It is mentioned in Bhagwad Gita that one’s body becomes old, but the aatma (soul) doesn’t get old”. It you find this funny, then this film is for you.
The so called educated progressive parents try to convince their daughter that how could she have trust in a man “jiski fitrat mein hai bhaag na hain” and that the man is uncaring and irresponsible that he did not care about his wife and children while running away to the UK.
Ashish starts feeling awkward and asks Ayesha to reveal to her parents that he and her father are almost the same age, to which Ayesha flatly refuses. Instead, Ayesha asks Ashish to win over her parents just as a young man would do. Initially Ayesha’s parent try to be progressive and accept their relationship, even their significant age gap. However, tensions arise when they realise that Aashish is almost as old as Rajji. Then the parents decide to do a ‘coup de foudre’ by introducing Meezaan Jafri’s character, between them; whose sole aim is to anyhow win over Ayesha and end her relationship with Aashish.
The patriarchal father tries to navigate his daughter to fall in love with someone appropriate, since protection of his daughter at any cost is his prime motive. More worried about what his friends circle and the society would think of Ashish and his daughter Ayesha’s marriage, the girl’s father even stoops to the extent of yelling at his daughter and her love – Ek ghatiya jawan ladki aur ek paise wala thurki buddha.
Mature love story… wrecked by immature climax!
If you want one more last one, then at one instance Ashish mentions “I belong to that generation where I would like to keep my father in laws happy on marrying the bride,” to which his young would be bride retorts, “I belong to the new generation where she doesn’t care for stupidity of a parents.”
This age-gap romance saga – De De Pyaar De 2 is quite loud this time and more of a convoluted family drama. Ajay Devgn returns as Ashish and he doesn’t have much to do or act with just accompanying his mother-in-law and other ladies for shopping sarees and footwear.
Rakul Preet Singh as Ayesha has displayed a wide range of avatars – radiance of the young peppy girl, hot and sensuous would be bride, a loving sister-in-law, a dramebaaz friend to her childhood accomplice Aditya Kumar (Meezan Jaafri), and finally a revolting Gen Z girl who yells at her parents. At one moment she even hurls swear words to her ‘loving’ father.
R Madhavan is subtle and underplays the character of Ayesha’s father who has different plans for his daughter.
De De Pyaar De 2 entertains in some parts, but the pacing falters, especially in the second half, where the film meanders through unnecessary subplots and contrived confrontations.
(Running time 146 minutes)
Cast of De De Pyaar De 2:
Ajay Devgn as Ashish Mehra
Rakul Preet Singh as Ayesha
R Madhavan as Rajji Khurana (Ayesha’s father)
Gautami Kapoor as Anju Khurana (Ayesha’s mother)
Jaaved Jaaferi as Sameer Khanna (Ashish’s friend)
Meezaan Jafri as Aditya Kumar Das
Ishita Dutta as Kittu
Tarun Gehlot as Rohan
Sanjeev Seth as Kittu’s father
Suhasini Mulay as Naani (Ayesha’s maternal grandmother)
Gracy Goswami as Tia
Credits of De De Pyaar De 2:
Production companies – T-Series Films, Luv Films
Produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Luv Ranjan, Ankur Garg
Directed by Anshul Sharma
Written by Luv Ranjan, Tarun Jain
Story by Luv Ranjan
Cinematography – Sudhir K. Chaudhary
Edited by Chetan M. Solanki
Songs: Yo Yo Honey Singh, Jaani, Aditya Dev–Payal Dev, Avvy Sra, Sagar Bhatia
Background Score: Hitesh Sonik
