Rating/ Verdit: 2 Stars out of 5
Cast: Isha Koppikar, Sonu Sood, Director: Kaushik Ghatak
There's only one reason I can think of for you to watch Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi, and that is Isha Koppikar. I've always felt she's got leading lady charisma and she's a competent actress too, but few films have exploited that.
In Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi, she's cast as a dutiful elder sister who puts her own marriage and singing career on hold so she can raise her two younger siblings when their father passes away suddenly.
Cast opposite her is Sonu Sood, who plays her patient and good-as-gold boyfriend who stands by her through these trying times and never once complains in the 12 years that he waits to be married to her. This plot is peppered with what must be more than 50 songs, very few of which you're likely to hum even moments after you've finished seeing the film.
Produced by who else but the Rajshri banner that seems to have more or less cracked the formula of making successful small-town marriage dramas, Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi can be summed up by that one line of dialogue that the heroine delivers fairly early in the film: Zamaana bahut aage nikal gaya hai. Main toh wohi ki wohi hoon. Truth is, she might as well be speaking about the film itself.
Simplistic and sincere, the film's bursting at the seams with old-fashioned plot points and characters. The evil chacha-chachi who conspire to take over their niece 's home, the new-age bahu who can't understand why she must participate in so many family traditions, the ever-helpful doctor-uncle who stops by every morning for garma-garam parathas -- you get the drift.
Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi seems to exist in a world far away from the one many of us occupy. It's idealistic and uncomplicated in its plot, its characters are all good or at best misunderstood, and in the end everyone goes home happy and without any complaints.
Does a world like that still exist? You can't be blamed for asking that question considering Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi is a faithful remake of the 1976 film Tapasya starring Raakhee and Parikshit Sahni that the Rajshri banner itself produced. But, do the same values hold true 32 years later? That's the question.
Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi is not so much a bad film as it is a film that's filled with too many impracticalities given the times it's made in. Would the heroine really need to scrape and scrounge to make ends meet when she's got a well-off boyfriend who's only happy to help? Would she really be left with no option but to put her marriage on hold for 12 years so she can stay home to raise and tutor her siblings? Has no one heard of boarding schools?
You see, my problem with Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi is that it's a film that wants its audience to celebrate the heroine's nobility and sacrifice. My argument is she didn't need to make that ridiculous sacrifice -- she could've just been practical!
I'm going with two out of five and at best an average rating for director Kaushik Ghatak's Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi. Watch it if you must for Isha Koppikar's confident performance, she's in very good form even though the film isn't.