Wedding Season

This movie was such a fun watch. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Had me laughing almost through the entire movie. Yeah, I know, some reviews say it's just an Indian adaptation of regular Hollywood romcoms but come on guys -It's romcom!! It kind of reminded me of the 'Social season' in Bridgerton. I really loved the laughs, gaffs, parents' schemes and 'blackmail', negotiations and of course the dance sequences and weddings, weddings, weddings. Suraj Sharma and Pallavi Sharda make a great onscreen couple as Ravi and Asha, the main leads. Although this is primarily a rom-com, it does highlight important themes and real-life lessons.

About This Movie

Wedding Season is a 2022 romantic comedy movie written by Shiwani Srivastava, directed by Tom Dey, and produced by Swati Shetty, Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard. The cast includes Suraj Sharma, Pallavi Sharda, Arianna Afsar, Veena Sood, Rizwan Manji, Damian Thompson, Ruth Goodwin, Sean Kleier, Meher Pavri, Sonia Dhillon Tully, Julius Cho, and Manoj Sood among others.

Synopsis

Asha is a hard-working rising star in the Microfinance sector. She left her Wall Street bank job partly to spite her parents who are bent on finding her a 'suitable' match as a husband. Ravi is an MIT dropout who works as a DJ after leaving a soul-sucking corporate job. Ravi's parents are also bent on finding him a match. It's wedding season and Asha's sister, Priya is getting married. Both parents' plots have reached fever pitch. Each has gone as far as creating embellished dating profiles to attract suitors. Asha negotiates with her mother who agrees to take down the dating profile if she meets up with Ravi. Asha and Ravi meet and they both admit they are being pressured by their parents and that the dating profiles are fake. Both strike a deal to fake date at least until wedding season is over to get their parents off their backs. But, their fake date leads to real feelings which they keep hidden from others. Asha gets a dream promotion and the funding she has been working for. This creates tensions of its own when some secrets come to light.

Social Relevance

This movie highlights several social themes like Love and Relationships; Parenting; Dating and Marriage; Parental pressure, Blackmail and Control; Indian culture; Indian weddings; Interethnic, Intercultural and Interreligious marriage; Caste, Class, Social and Economic divides; Matchmaking; and Work and Career among other things

Lessons and Takeaways

This movie throws up several lessons and key takeaways:

• All parents want their children to do well but sometimes in their bid to do this, they alienate their children and push them away
• Parental, cultural, and societal pressure puts a tremendous amount of stress on young people to conform, succeed, and obtain high-flying careers even at the expense of their happiness and freedom
• Marriage is a lifetime commitment and should never be rushed into
• It is true that parents and elders see what the young ones cannot but, sometimes a young person might need to make his/her own mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and use those lessons to become better and more successful
• Not everyone wants the pressures of a corporate career, fame, or great fortune. Some people want a quiet, peaceful life

High and Low Points

Asha and Ravi are great hands down but, my favorite characters are Priya and James. Apart from being quite the beaut, Priya is such a great person to have in your corner. She shared such a beautiful bond with Asha and had such a great relationship with Nick even though it was a cross-cultural and interreligious relationship. James was such a great boss and hype man. If all bosses were like him, people wouldn't leave their jobs. He was very confident about his strengths and chose to push others up so that they could shine. Great guy!

The main high point for me was Asha's getting another chance to make her presentation and choosing to tell her own story. A beautifully poignant and powerful but personal story that resonated with the team from Singapore. The low point was the Aunties who kept trying to paint Ravi as a fraud or con

Final Take

Wedding Season is a great feel-good fun movie for your weekend movie or Netflix and chill night.