No matter how contrived and conventional they might get at times, madcap comedies like Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai have a way of trundling along no matter how frequent and imposing the roadblocks in its path are. There are plenty of them here and they do get in the way of the film becoming the pure, old-fashioned laugh riot that it aspires to be.
The title is drawn from a song in David Dhawan’s Biwi No 1 (1999), but Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai, which the veteran director has announced will be the final film of his long and eventful career, does not roll off the tongue as smoothly as a Hindi film number usually does.
Its rhythm is strictly of a sputtering fits-and-starts variety. The fits are rarely more than flashes – a funny line of dialogue (Farhad Samji) here or a mildly droll situation (screenplay: Yunus Sajawal) there. And the starts never quite translate into anything lasting even when they show some promise. So, you’ve got to make do with sporadic sparks.
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai is a comedy about an accidental two-timer who is cornered into dealing with two expectant mothers who have no idea that the father of the two babies in their wombs is the same.
Romps of this nature assume various forms and succeed only when the lunacy on the screen does not degenerate into mere buffoonery. Not that it does in this film but its jabs at tickling the funny bone very rarely hit the right spots.
This concoction, mindless but ultimately harmless, hinges on one man, two women and two childbirths in the same maternity ward, a recipe for bewildering bedlam. The unbridled chaos yields some amount of middling fun but since the audience is always in the know of what is coming the film has no major surprises in store.
Varun Dhawan is a wedding photographer, Jaswinder “Jass” Ahuja.
Jass is married to a corporate executive, Bani (Mrunal Thakur), who isn’t ready for a baby. She wants to focus on her career and needs no distractions. However, there isn’t a single sequence in the film that shows her at work.
The couple has strong disagreements over planning their first child. Jass is always in the mood for love but Bani will have none of it. She insists on using a contraceptive and that is not what the husband who yearns to be a father has in mind.
When we first meet Bani and Jass, they have been married for five years. They are in a session with a marriage counsellor (Kubbra Sait in a cameo). All meaningful channels of communication have broken down between them and they are ready to part ways.
After a flashback made up of sundry romantic encounters, a destination wedding and a song and dance sequence that brings Jass and Bani together, the bickering couple is before a family court judge who advises them to give themselves six months before they make up their minds for good.
The interregnum allows Jass to jet off to the United Kingdom with his camera. He meets Preet (Pooja Hegde). There is a brief flashback here, too. Preet and Jass kiss as they recall a past encounter.
Preet has a trigger-happy elder brother Jogi Randhawa (Jimmy Shergill), who lets the growing love between his sister and the visitor blossom. The rest is hysteria. Bani returns with good news but the ‘happy’ tidings give Jass no joy.
One of the girls says to Jass: Jo bhi hota hai achche ke liye hota hai, hamare case mein bachche ke liye hoga. Indeed. A lot of talk about the babies that are on the way is interspersed with the wild efforts of Jass and his best pal Kannu (Maniesh Paul) to hide the wild oats the former has sown.
When he is in trouble, Jass casts his mind back for inspiration to his schooldays and the things he learnt from three enterprising teachers (Manoj Pahwa, Rajpal Yadav and Johny Lever, who appear in one scene each).
At the hospital that Jass is compelled to frequent in the present day, Jass runs into a doctor (Chunky Panday) – the hero calls him a “Galgotia University ka doctor” – and a compounder (Rakesh Bedi), who do little to make matters any easier for him. Also thrown into the mix is a fake mother (Mouni Roy) known to the world as Rasmalai Rajjo.
In this anything-goes affair, there might not be much to laugh out loud over. But that does not stop the actors from pulling out the stops and striking out every which way they can.
The comic energy that Varun Dhawan must pack into his performance is both verbal and physical. It takes some doing. That he is completely unabashed in the way he plunges in headlong helps him tide over the inconsistencies in the characterisation.
The two lead actresses have no dearth of footage. Despite being the principal founts of the confusion that grips the male protagonist, their roles are secondary, if not merely decorative. Mrunal Thakur and Pooja Hegde lose no opportunity to make their presence felt in the dance numbers. They also go all out in propping up the hilarity quotient with varying degrees of efficacy.
Jimmy Shergill as the stern big brother who begins to soften a tad when a lady sways into his life from an unexpected direction serves up loads of deadpan mirth.
No key member of the cast spares any effort. It shows. How one perceives the effects of all the hard work that goes into driving the rigmarole that is Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai depends on what one expects from actors saddled with material that is anything but inspired.
The film creaks noisily under the weight of all the push and pull that it demands from the cast but makes it to the end in one piece despite the overwhelming inanity of it all.
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai is vintage David Dhawan. But that is not necessarily a good thing for a comedy made in 2026. It’s the 1990s no more.
Also Read | Setback For Vashu Bhagnani, Bombay High Court Clears Hai Jawani Release Amid Rs 400 Crore Case
