Half Girlfriend

HALF GIRLFRIEND is dim-witted and hardly interesting!

Aggrandized by glossy visuals and soulful music, this on-screen representation of Chetan Bhagat’s subpar novel lacks substance, logic and freshness. With a banal screenplay, stock characters, and a pseudo-progressive theme, this film isn’t really worth a watch, unless you have absolutely nothing else to do this weekend.

Based on Chetan Bhagat’s popular novel by the same name, Half Girlfriend is the love story of a Bihari boy and a high society girl. Propelled by the backdrop of how English defines a class system, it talks about Madhav (Arjun Kapoor), who wants to get into a relationship with the urban and English speaking Riya (Shraddha Kapoor), but the girl is not interested in commitment. Hence, she becomes his HALF GIRLFRIEND!

As you can read above, or if you’ve already read the book, you can very well realize the heft in the content of this film. When the book on which it is based itself lacks substance, how do you expect the film to have any real meaning to it. But the sad part is, that even for a commercial non-brainer, HALF GIRLFRIEND isn’t engaging enough. While the first half is still breezy (read “dumb but passable”), the post interval drama is a real drag. Writer Tushar Hiranandani is content with the sub-standard literature that he’s been handed over to adapt to a screenplay and doesn’t add any value to it at all.

Director Mohit Suri has an extraordinary sense of music, and yet again he embellishes his narrative with an engrossing soundtrack. But the same euphony is missing from his directorial. Fraught with clichés and glaring flaws, his filmmaking is reduced to a motley assortment rather than a harmonious blend of various elements. The characters too are mere caricatures and notwithstanding the slick locales and high production values, the film ends up being an average product at best.

The performances too deserve no special mention. Arjun and Shraddha merely play out the surface-level identities they’re given, and not even for a moment strike a chord. Same is the case with the supporting cast, which is so bland that you hardly realize their presence. Blame it on the poor script, no character truly shines.

To sum up, HALF GIRLFRIEND is full of half measures, right from the start till the end. Not recommended at all, but if you still have to, watch it in the absolutely spare time that you find.