Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019)

An absolutely beautiful story about a queer women coming out to her conservative father. The supporting cast is killer, and it focuses strongly on an unlikely friendship. Highly, highly recommend.

⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ // Five Stars

Director: Shelly Chopra Dhar

Where To Watch: Netflix!

Google User Rating: 79% liked this movie!

"Until we find true love... we don't even come to know what's missing in life." (Sweety Chaudhary)

This movie is set in the city of Moga found in Punjab, India, so everything's in Hindi! Time for subtitles, ladies! Unless of course, you know Hindi.

This movie, like Fried Green Tomatoes, is not specifically about the romantic relationship. It's really about family and understanding love, and in the words of the director, those who are expecting a strong sense of romance "will be disappointed because that’s not what the film is about." I think these kinds of movies are just as, if not more important and impactful as straight-up LGBTQ+ romance movies anyways...

Quick Synopsis

The movie starts with a sick musical number as the Chaudhary family and their friends celebrate a wedding. Sweety, the daughter of a wealthy garment maker and still single, is approached by a woman named Kuhu who says her brother is into Sweety. Sweety doesn't

say much, and is then shown dancing alone in her room (can you guess why, can you? I'll just tell you, she's smitten with Kuhu!), and the scene is finished. We cut to a theater where Sahil, a writer, is watching his play unfold terribly before him (it's basically a really crappy love story, which is relevant to his character arch). Sweety comes into the theater, clearly in distress, and converses with Sahil until she hears shouting outside. Sahil helps Sweety escape from whoever she's running from, eventually making it to the train station, but the person chasing them has caught up! A fight pursues and Sweety gets away. However, Sahil and the man are taken to the police station but are eventually let go. It's here, however, that we find out that the man chasing them is Sweety's brother, Babloo.

Sahil is completely enamored by Sweety and decides to go to Moga (where she lives, a piece of information he found out from the police station) to perform plays there. There, using the information he found at the police station, Sahil gets his friend Chatro, an enthusiastic but talentless actress, to find out her address. Meanwhile, Sweety's in trouble with her brother because of an unknown reason (spoiler... she's gay) and threatens to tell her father everything he knows if she leaves the house (a bit harsh, but whatever). Then, he decides to break her phone and internet box (what's that thing called? The thing that distributes wifi?) and reveals to her father that she's seeing a Muslim man! Wait what? Good, he didn't tell their father she's gay, but now she's in trouble for seeing a Muslim (which, if you were unaware, is a big no-no for many families in India due to... many factors, you should look it up, it's pretty interesting). Anyways, Sahil

shows up and gives the family chef a letter for Sweety through the kitchen window, but the chef was actually Sweety's father! He just likes to cook at night because his mother (who lives with them) is big on gender roles and shames him for it. Obviously he reads the letter and assumes it's from the Muslim man Sweety is apparently seeing. Knowing Sweety never got his letter, Sahil starts holding acting classes along with Chatro and sends Sweety a flier with a little note explaining his intentions to meet her at one of these classes. Because of other dialogue in the movie, Sahil thinks Sweety is in love with him, and he thinks he loves her too, so that's why he's doing all this... just to clarify. Sahil meets Sweety at the acting classes, and her grandmother (I think... family member? Aunt?) takes to Sahil and invites him to a birthday party the next day. He goes, hears more dialogue about how Sweety loves the Muslim man, assumes it's him because he's Muslim and a man, and therefore goes to Sweety's room to confess his love. Sweety stops him halfway through his drunken spiel and admits that she's in love with someone else. A girl! Surprise! The scene ends with Sahil laughing his ass off. The next scene starts with Sahil and Chatro canceling the acting classes (because what's the point now that his love is a lesbian lol), and Chatro goes offscreen for

something, allowing Sweety's father (Balbir) to enter and share a moment with Sahil. He explains that inter-religious marriage is inappropriate, but he likes Sahil nonetheless. This doesn't really mean anything considering Sweety doesn't love him, of course, but this does allow Balbir to meet Chatro again (first met at the birthday party) and they're attracted to each other! Nice, and also relevant to the plot! Later, Sahil meets Sweety at a temple and they share a tender moment as good friends as Sweety explains her unfortunate childhood as an outed lesbian at school. After some time, Sahil finally knows how to help Sweety, and decides to put on a play about Sweety and Kuhu's love (they have been secretly meeting in Delhi and have officially fallen in love), but not telling anyone they're actually in love. Balbir is ok with it because Chatro convinced him it would be a fresh new idea, Balbir's mom is ok with it because she thinks it's a comedy, and Babloo thinks it's ok because... he left to help with his father's business while they prepare the show, so technically he doesn't even know. But nonetheless! They are all ok with it, so the show continues, but it doesn't go as planned. Will Babloo find out about the play? Will he out Sweety to their father? What do the locals think about the play, and does it become successful? Or does it just ruin the Chaudhary reputation, leaving Sweety to choose the only escape she can think of? Watch and find out!

Wow, I love how I say quick synopsis and then just write out a full-fledged summary. Whoops!

Official Review

Where do I begin? My fingers kind of hurt from that summary! Let's talk about all the things I love about this movie, the most obvious being the stellar supporting cast. Chatro, Balbir, the aunts, and everyone else are hilarious, full of character and liveliness, and really make the movie for me. They're amazing at their jobs, and carry this movie into five-star territory. Chatro and Balbir's side romance is so cute and very relevant to the plot, so everything

works out perfectly. The funny bets the servants make, the playful banter, it was all so wholesome and well done. The music, oh my god the music was amazing. So many bops. Between the musical number in the beginning and the other dancing scenes throughout the movie, I was vibing the entire time. The music added so much emotion to the plot and carried the movie where there may have been some downfalls. The costumes and set were great, so many beautiful outfits, so many colors everywhere. The beautiful architecture of the Chaudhary's house, contrasted with the less glamorous (but still charming due to the people living there) feel of the rest of the small town of Moga. The ending was what really sealed the five stars for me though, the whole father-daughter thing going on tugs at the heartstrings and definitely made me cry. It was so. well. done. I don't want to say too much, but it was very emotional. And just production-wise, the ending was so good! The musical montage, the whole thing, the director was so spot on with this movie. I don't even know how to explain it technically, but it was just so well coordinated that you really enjoyed watching certain scenes. It was just such a high-quality movie, dialogue, music, setting, costumes, everything was on point. And goddammit, it was extremely emotional. Sahil really was the ultimate LGBT ally, and was just a good friend to Sweety, what a man.

Let's talk about downfalls. There was one big one. And that's Sweety's performance. To be honest, it was a bit lackluster. Far from bad, but I agreed with another article I read when it said a better actress for Sweety would have taken this movie to new heights. But, as I said, the music really helped her out on the whole emotional bit.

Lastly, it's important to note that the movie left of any intimacy between Kudu and Sweety for a reason. Shelly Chopra Dhar specifically did not include any kissing or what not due to her intentions to spread this movie to more rural areas in India, where the sight of same-sex intimacy would make them refuse the movie instantly (also an interesting note to add, not many Indian movies feature kissing/intimacy anyways, according to my lovely friend, so perhaps that also played a part... alright I'll continue). And although I would've loved Kudu and Sweety to just start raw doggin' it at some point, I completely agree with Dhar and believe she did the right thing. The only way to start showing more conservative people in rural areas that gay people are not, in fact, the devil, is to take baby steps and show that it really is just love. Plain and simple. Just love. And like the movie says, how could love do any harm?

P.S. The screenwriters are Shelly and Gazal Dhaliwal, a transgender activist! I really am so proud of women for this film... so proud. Brings a tear to my eye! Just kidding, but still, isn't it amazing how far we've come?

Cast/Heartthrobs

Anik Kapoor as Balbir played a great dad. What a guy, funny, nice hair, stellar. Juhi Chawla (Chaptro) played the perfect quirky and crazy friend, one of the most entertaining people in the movie. Sonam Kapoor Ahuja (Sweety) is exactly what I talked about earlier, just slightly boring. Felt like there should have been some more emotion when she had her big fight scenes. She also was very timid most of the time, which makes sense because of her character and also gender roles in India but still. Sahil, aka Rajkummar Rao was very good! A little weird at some points, but overall did a great job, I genuinely love his character. Making him turn from love interest to ally was a 10/10 move. Ok, I'm tired, I love the cast, very entertaining, fast-paced movie, on to the next one!

Until we find true love ... we don't even come to know what's missing in life