Nadaaniyan

Over the years, veteran Bollywood producer Karan Johar has taken it upon himself to launch star progeny in films that privilege a ‘Bollywood-type’ style over narrative substance. Nadaaniyan, now streaming on Netflix, is yet another effort in this tradition. The film, directed by Shauna Gautam, is highly disappointing, to say the least, and is almost totally devoid of any genuine emotional depth or narrative ingenuity.

The film sees Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor), the daughter of South Delhi elites, Rajat (Suniel Shetty) and Neelu Jaisingh (Mahima Chaudhry), having spent her life under the quiet burden of her parents’ unfulfilled desire for a male heir to carry forward the family name. She find some solace in her two closest friends, Rhea (Apoorva Makhija) and Sahira (Aaliyah Qureishi). They study at Falcon High, a fancy high school. Ayaan Nanda (Dev Agasteya), a classmate, and the longtime object of Sahira’s affection, unexpectedly turns his attention toward Pia, fracturing the girls’ friendship. In a bid to salvage it, Pia devises a plan. She hires Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan), a new student at her school and the son of a doctor, Sanjay Mehta (Jugal Hansraj) and a schoolteacher, Nandini (Dia Mirza), to pose as her boyfriend. What follows is an unfolding of a manufactured tale that makes little or no impact.

Nadaaniyan attempts to explore an unexpected relationship between two individuals from different social strata, but its treatment remains disappointingly hollow. Pia, an elite girl from a posh Delhi neighbourhood, is contrasted with Arjun, who hails from Noida – an area dismissed by most of their privileged classmates. Yet, rather than engaging with the stark class divide in any sort of meaningful way, the film’s narrative is highly superficial. Pia comes from a dysfunctional family and is portrayed as an underconfident girl, but the script never truly commits to exploring her complexities. Arjun, on the other hand, is intelligent and well-rounded, prioritizing his future over love, having grown up under the care of protective parents. Yet, instead of delving into their contrasting perspectives with any depth, the film settles for vague character beats that lack emotional weight. After a point, the film feels like a half-baked offshoot of Johar’s Student of the Year franchise—one that should never have been greenlit beyond the synopsis stage. That it took all three screenwriters – Ishita Moitra, Riva Razdan Kapoor, and Jehan Handa – to arrive at this muddled, uninspired execution is gobsmacking.

In an attempt to add complexity to the narrative, the film takes a mid-story detour into Pia’s family dynamics. Rajat, emotionally distant due to his extramarital affair, suddenly begins to show concern, sitting down for family dinners and seeing his daughter in a new light – thanks, in part, to Arjun’s influence. These could have been moments of genuine depth, but instead, they are rendered with the sheeny superficiality of a primetime soap opera. The Diwali night quarrel, sparked by a bitter revelation between Rajat and Neelu, is similarly reduced to melodramatic theatrics, devoid of any poignancy. Meanwhile, Arjun’s parents, Sanjay and Nandini, exist more as narrative placeholders than fully realized characters. Sanjay, a doctor, is defined solely through dialogue – his profession is never meaningfully integrated into the story. Nandini, despite being a teacher, is never shown in a classroom. Their presence seems to serve only one function: dispensing pep talks to their son and without any effort whatsoever to flesh them out, they remain little more than decorative fillers in an already thinly developed narrative.

Performance-wise, the film feels more like a workshop recording that was never meant to leave the rehearsal room. Khushi Kapoor and Ibrahim Ali Khan have delivered performances that feel tentative at best, further hindered by a script devoid of anything substantial. Though this is Kapoor’s third film, yet she still struggles to make her character feel lived-in or engaging. Suniel Shetty and Mahima Chaudhry, as a couple in perpetual conflict, add little beyond tired melodrama. Archana Puran Singh, reprising her role as Ms Braganza Malhotra from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), is reduced to a caricature, awkwardly forcing Gen Z slang into her dialogue with little effect. Barun Chanda, in the role of Pia’s grandfather, Dhanraj Jaisingh, has a brief appearance, one that feels like a wasted opportunity. Amidst this, the fleeting presence of Jugal Hansraj and Dia Mirza offers portrayals that are among the few convincing ones in the film, but they are unable to elevate an otherwise lifeless ensemble.

The cinematography by Anuj Samtani and the production design by Amrita Mahal Nakai and Sabrina Singh work in tandem to create a glossy, hyper-stylized aesthetic that often feels more like an extended commercial than a lived-in world. Falcon High, the elite school at the film’s centre, looks less like an actual institution and more like a parallel reality where every surface is polished to perfection, devoid of any texture or authenticity. There’s only so much an editor can salvage from a weak screenplay and shoddy filming so it is no surprise that editors Vaishnavi Bhate and Sidhant Seth struggle to inject any real rhythm or emotional resonance into the film, even with Nitin Baid serving as supervising editor. The sound design is practically non-existent, overwhelmed by Tushar Lall’s background score.

Ultimately, Nadaaniyan is a film with underdeveloped characters, contrived conflicts, and lacklustre performances. It is a hollow exercise in filmmaking, devoid of even a basic semblance of a meaningful viewing experience.

Hindi, Rom-Com, Drama, Color