“Ginny Weds Sunny” Is Your Dose Of Light-Hearted Distraction

What happens when a simple Delhi boy (a bit of an oxymoron, I know) meets a free-spirited Punjabi girl, falls in love with her, and decides to marry her, all while she is barely aware of his existence? The overly cheesy pickup lines and failed attempts to win the girl are what make up this romantic comedy of errors that is “Ginny Weds Sunny,” streaming on Netflix and directed by debutant Puneet Khanna.

Satnam “Sunny” Sethi (Vikrant Massey) belongs to a middle-class Punjabi family in Delhi. He’s an aspiring chef who dreams of the day he can convert his dad’s hardware store into his own restaurant. His dad has only one condition: get married first. Desperate for love (and a wife), Sunny has met multiple girls and has been rejected by them all. Life takes a turn when he bumps into the mother of his high-school crush at a wedding and she notices him gawking at her daughter. 

Shobha Juneja (Ayesha Raza) is a matchmaker with a 100% success rate. When she senses Sunny’s attraction towards her daughter Princess Simran “Ginny” Juneja (Yami Gautam), she has the brilliant idea of setting them up. Here’s the first catch: her daughter does not want an arranged marriage. With the confidence of a mother who thinks she knows her daughter really well, Shobha sets out to groom Sunny so he can woo Ginny and make her fall in love with him.

Here’s the second catch: Ginny’s “ex” boyfriend Nishant Rathee (Suhail Nayyar) is still in the picture (no pun intended). She refers to him as “Confusion” because of her mixed feelings for him. Ginny and Nishant are in a relatable modern-day kabhi pyaar kabhi break up type of relationship where two people visibly still like each other and hang out even after breaking up. Ginny wants to get married and Nishant isn’t ready for a lifelong commitment. Typical. 

That leaves Sunny with two major challenges: wooing the love of his childhood AND getting rid of the handsome, confident, rich Haryanvi dude whom Ginny clearly still has feelings for. Is Sunny up to the challenge? Will Shobha aunty’s tactics help or hurt Sunny’s chances?

While “Ginny Weds Sunny” is fairly predictable and not unlike several previous Bollywood romantic comedies, I have to call out what kept me interested in watching this two-hour movie till the end: Vikrant Massey; he is brilliantly hilarious as a self-conscious simpleton. I have admired his work over the years in super hits such as “Mirzapur,” “Criminal Justice,” and “Chhapaak,” which were all on the serious and dramatic end of the spectrum. This is the first time we get to see Massey as a mainstream Bollywood hero goofing around and dancing to hit Punjabi songs at weddings. There are few actors in recent years who have shown this level of versatility in their performance and we can’t wait to see what else Massey has to offer. Complementing Massey’s energetic screen presence, the film also features Yami Gautam and Ayesha Raza who portray a typical mother-daughter duo toggling between love and annoyance for each other with their super cute expressions and entertaining dialogue delivery.

While the movie may not be one of the best things you will watch in 2020, it is a fun and light-hearted timepass movie and honestly, we could all use that kind of distraction this year.