Rating – *1/2 (1.5/5)
Cast: Ibrahim Ali Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Mahima Chaudhry, Jugal Hansraj, Dia Mirza & more
Directed by: Shauna Gautam
Produced by: Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Somen Mishra
Now streaming on Netflix
It isn’t often that a film leaves you so disinterested that you find yourself wrestling with your patience to stay engaged. Actually, scratch that—it happens quite often. But usually, even the most lacklustre films have some redeeming qualities that hold them together, however feebly.
Netflix’s latest offering, Nadaaniyan, the grand launch vehicle of Ibrahim Ali Khan opposite Khushi Kapoor in a new-age love story doubling as a coming-of-age drama, regrettably, lands itself in this category with almost nothing working in its favor—save for a few scattered moments of respite.
At its core, Nadaaniyan is an incredibly juvenile attempt at crafting a Gen-Z romance, riddled with a narrative so shallow it barely manages to skim the surface of anything meaningful. Ibrahim’s character, Arjun, is essentially a recycled version of Sidharth Malhotra’s Abhimanyu from Student of the Year—a boy from humble beginnings who secures a full scholarship to the ludicrously named “Falcon High” due to his prowess as a debate champion.
Ironically, his supposed talent for debate remains completely absent from the film, never once manifesting in his interactions. Instead, we get a swimming champion with a neatly curated vision board for life, but beyond the display of chiselled abs, he seems utterly adrift, bereft of any real direction or intellectual depth.
The lack of conviction in their portrayals renders the entire emotional arc meaningless, making the film a tedious affair to sit through.
On the flip side, we have Khushi Kapoor’s Pia—a character who functions solely on the validation of her so-called best friends. The more the film progresses, the more asinine this dynamic becomes, exacerbated by the actors’ increasingly detached performances that fail to uphold even the illusion of depth. The lack of conviction in their portrayals renders the entire emotional arc meaningless, making the film a tedious affair to sit through.
To lend some credibility to this otherwise hollow setup, veteran actors like Suniel Shetty, Mahima Chaudhry, Jugal Hansraj, and Dia Mirza step in as the protagonists’ respective parents. However, despite their best efforts to imbue the film with gravitas, the emotional beats and conflicts they attempt to establish barely register. The writing does them no favors, reducing their presence to little more than a feeble attempt at adding depth that never quite lands.
It might be tempting to dismiss Nadaaniyan as just another breezy rom-com, unfairly scrutinized for being lighthearted, but that would be a misconception. A well-executed rom-com can be an absolute delight, but this film never even flirts with the idea of doing it right. Instead, its wafer-thin plot keeps unraveling over its two-hour runtime, leaving even its own cast looking increasingly bewildered.
It is almost unfathomable that Ishita Moitra—one of the writers behind the stellar Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani—co-wrote this screenplay alongside Riva Razdan Kapoor, with dialogues by Jehan Handa. The film’s desperate, almost try-hard attempt to be “relatable” to Gen-Z audiences falls flat at every turn, with its uninspired one-liners and forced puns making the dialogues feel more like a poorly executed parody than actual conversations.
Normally, a review would nitpick the weaker aspects of a film, but Nadaaniyan presents an entirely different challenge—it offers virtually nothing worth defending
But if there’s one department that truly takes the cake for the film’s most glaring missteps, it’s the dubbing and audio mixing. Sohel Sanwari and Kaarthic Jayanthi Senthil’s work results in a consistently off-sync experience, where the actors’ lips move in one rhythm while the dialogue audio seems to operate in an entirely different dimension.
This disconnect completely robs the performances of their intended impact. A particularly jarring example is when Ibrahim’s character, in a fit of rage, yells “shut up!”—a moment that should feel raw and powerful but lands with the emotional intensity of a muffled whisper, thanks to the post-production blunder.
The only saving grace in this mess? A couple of well-composed tracks, notably Ishq Mein, and the ever-charming Archana Puran Singh, who reprises a spin-off version of her iconic Ms. Braganza character from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai—now humorously renamed Ms. Braganza Malhotra, as she apparently married Mr. Malhotra from the film. Her brief moments on screen bring a few chuckles, but they’re nowhere near enough to salvage the disaster unfolding around her.
Normally, a review would nitpick the weaker aspects of a film, but Nadaaniyan presents an entirely different challenge—it offers virtually nothing worth defending. Every thematic thread remains painfully underexplored, from Arjun’s “education” and “scholarship” status to Pia’s parental issues and self-worth crisis.
Director Shauna Gautam doesn’t so much scratch the surface as she does hover her fingers above it, uncertain of where to even begin. The result? A cinematic porridge—bland, insipid, and utterly devoid of any standout elements.
And so, with an air of inevitability, one is forced to conclude with a pun as uninspired as the film itself: the makers and actors of Nadaaniyan were indeed nadaan enough to believe this could ever work.
