By Martin D'Souza, Bollywood Trade News Network

Call it ill-timing or twist of fate. One can’t help but keep rewinding to HONEYMOON TRAVELS PRIVATE LTD… which released on February 23, as one sits through Meghna Gulzar’s JUST MARRIED. If the premise of the plot is about a honeymoon for a couple (Fardeen Khan and Esha Deol) who have had an arranged marriage, the four other couples thrown in to spice up the script gives one a feeling of déjà vu! Then, there’s also the bus and scenes in it which is reminiscent of HONEYMOON…It can’t be that the two directors exchanged notes while making the movies!!

Having said that, Meghana’s second offering after FILHAAL falls short of the mark. Fardeen Khan and Esha Deol as the couple who are off on their honeymoon having married after meeting just once display all the awkwardness a couple go through when in an arranged marriage. And in the process, the director brings into focus marriage and its various interpretations through the lives of the other couples.

There’s Satish Shah and Kirron Kher who have been married for 40 years. The couple is always at loggerheads. But scratch the surface and you’ll see that they are devoted to each other. The last scene where Satish refuses to leave the bus as it hangs off the cliff with his wife paralyzed in fear highlights their love. Satish and Kirron give out a standout performance with their sometimes-silly banter and otherwise annoying expressions at each other.

There’s also Raj Zutshi and Tarina Patel who ‘live-in’; Perizaad Zorabian and Bikram Saluja who are on their third holiday; and Sadia Siddiqui and Mukul Dev, two childhood sweethearts who have taken each other for granted. It’s only when she changes into a saree that Mukul sees his wife in a different light, away from the image he has of her in a frock. Both, Mukul and Sadia stand out for their act.

Coming back to the protagonists, Fardeen as the man who is supposed to bottle his emotions and allow his wife to get the feel of him being around her emotes well. As for Esha, she is growing with every performance. With perfect expressions and body language to boot, she portrays well what millions of girls go through in an arranged marriage.

The dialogues are good so is the background music. Like I mentioned earlier, if not for HONEYMOON… this flick would have hit the mark. But with two films already in two months showing the lives of six couples (SALAAM-E-ISHQ included) one wonders whether the audience will be game for more multiple love stories.

JUST MARRIED, just about makes it!

Ratings: 2/5