Bawaal Review: Haldiram's, Hitler and the Holocaust save a troubled marriage

A couple with a marriage on the rocks use the genocide of Jews as a metaphor for 'the World War within'. Yes, as absurd as it sounds, that's Bawaal summed up for you in a line.

Nitesh Tiwari, the man who brought you Dangal and Chhichhore, returns to his melodramatic self with Bawaal. The movie could have been a simple romantic comedy with a dysfunctional couple fighting it out and then making up but Mr Tiwari tries to get ambitious; ambitious enough to incorporate the beaches of Normandy and the Holocaust in this small-town love story. 

The latest Hindi drama on Prime Video stars Varun Dhawan as Ajju Bhaiya, a streetsmart teacher from Lucknow and Janhvi Kapoor as Nisha, his wife (whose dominant character trait is that she gets epileptic seizures).  Ajju cares for his reputation so much that he refuses to hold any romantic connection with his wife as he’s afraid that her seizures might make him appear weak. 

Not just in his marriage, he’s no good at his job either, having slapped an MLA’s son when he questioned Ajju Bhaiya’s history-teacher credentials. And so, to get out of his premature mid-life crisis, Ajju comes up with the most random of plans: asking his father Rs 8-10 lakh for a Europe trip so that he can visit all important World War II sites and give his students on-ground knowledge from these places (you know, distance learning). 

And Nisha becomes Ajju’s trump card because the excuse of repairing his broken marriage convinces his nagging father (played by an always-in-form Manoj Pahwa) to shell out his money. Then, as you can expect, the couple end up going to Europe, discover more about themselves and finally fall in love. Oh, and also, Ajju wins the trust of his students as he actually does give them World War II knowledge over video lectures from Europe. Sigh. 

There are many questions that Bawaal offers. For starters, how did the couple get a France visa appointment and a visa within a month (especially with a reason like “second Honeymoon”)?

Logic might not seem important for a melodramatic snoozefest like Bawaal but the fact that it sometimes acts like a self-aware, modern-day love story is baffling. The fact that it acts as a coming-of-age tale for Ajju’s evolution from a no-gooder to a responsible teacher is even more baffling. The fact that some random World War II flashbacks are roped in to bring about this character evolution is well... you get it, this whole movie is baffling. 

Ajju visits places like the Anne Frank Museum, Normandy beaches and the Auschwitz concentration camp to give his students the most basic of information that they can even find on Wikipedia instead of falling for Ajju’s nonsensical teaching scheme. Varun Dhawan’s hero suddenly faces a change of heart when he realises, “So many soldiers died in Normandy, some were just 17-18 years old” or “Anne Frank died early but she will forever live in the hearts of millions”. 

If all of this doesn’t induce enough cringe, Ajju always ends his video lectures with, “Padhega Lucknow tabhi toh badhega Lucknow.”

Getting to the marriage, that’s another exhausting affair sprinkled with Haldiram's product placements and Holocaust metaphors. 

When the husband-wife duo start understanding each other better, they are stuck in their Paris hotel room with no food. This is when Janhvi Kapoor takes out two packets of Haldiram’s Ready-To-Eat food packages, one being daal-chawal and the other rajma-chawal (yes, these small details matter). 

Ajju chooses rajma and so, Nisha mechanically walks up to the bathroom tap, turns on the hot water and immerses the food packet. Seconds later, Ajju is smilingly feasting on his rajma-chawal, mentioning how he’s eating “rajma straight from the washroom” for the first time. 

If you thought that the dialogues were bad, wait till you reach the part when they arrive in Berlin. Visiting Hitler’s former stronghold, Ajju remarks how the real “bawaal” will start here. And he’s right. The real bawaal is unleashed on your brain as Nisha equates Hitler’s plans of genocidal control as another instance of human greed. 

Just have a glimpse at her exact words, 

And so, their marital struggles continue getting ruined until a Holocaust survivor makes them realise their flaws. And to top it all, Ajju imagines how his life would have been if he himself was driven to the gas chamber like hundreds and thousands of Holocaust-era Jews. (One question: why?)

Bawaal ultimately comes off as a preachy sermon on loving your partner and appreciating the little things in life because the Jews had it worse! While Janhnvi Kapoor is as lifeless as ever, Dhawan tries really hard to channel his “inner Govinda energy” but comes off as simply intolerable.

As for director Nilesh Tiwari, he did try to add a Nazi spin to the rom-com formula but Bawaal tries to say so many things at once that it ultimately comes off as a mess (perhaps an unintentionally anti-Semitic mess). 

While the premise is itself flawed to start with, another director might have possibly crafted a slightly more watchable war/marriage satire. But as Bawaal is a Nilesh Tiwari film, it has to be an overlong moral science lesson.