Don’t Be Shy Review: CLICHED!

Sreeti Mukerji’s cliched coming-of-age delivers its moments of sass but never quite defines the age of confusion, sighs Sukanya Verma.

IMAGE: Aarushi Bajaj, Piyush Khati, Bianca Arora and Ansh Duggal in Don’t Be Shy.

 

Don’t Be Shy is a misleading title.

There’s no holding back the central character of writer-director Sreeti Mukerji’s college romp and her manipulative drama queen ways as she flits between lies and last-minute guilty conscience to suit her agenda.

Like 90% protagonists of a young adult story, Shyamali ‘Shy’ Das (Aarushi Bajaj) has her life all figured out. And if you have watched even 20% of fluff the genre churns out, you have its tropes down pat even before its spunky college going heroine wakes from her precious, overachiever dream in a room full of pink, to-do slogans and a pet turtle called Bulby.

Shy’s Deceptive Ambitions

Shy’s perfection chasing goals receive much of their training from her idol and life coach Nandini Verma’s (Neha Dhupia in an amusing cameo) book but her carefree upbringing can be attributed to her hippie-like parents (Anurag Basu, Anju Alva Naik) empowering her to do as she pleases while they shake a leg to Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani as a solution to any problem.

So the overexuberant, overwrought young lady fibs about her crazy, cluttered home, defunct family-run store and shrill neighbourhood folks to date a slick SoBo moneybags Mayank Jhunjhunwala (Piyush Khati), hoping someday she’ll graduate from lugging around his protein shaker, a symbol of commitment among the teenybopper crowd, to wearing the J-ring, a ticket to the good life as CEO of Jhunjhunwala businesses.

Romantic Entanglements and Friendship Flaws

When not breaking into a High School Musical-like song and dance number with Mayank, she sends off mixed signals to the bespectacled boy-next-door Dhruv (Ansh Duggal), a karate kid gone kaput. No prizes for guessing where this romantic entanglement is headed.

The entry of ‘Budget Shakira’ the flamboyantly dressed bestie type, Tara (Bianca Arora) hopes to make a case for sisters before misters. But it’s such a drearily written arc, you feel not a shred of Shy and Tara’s so-called connection.

Crumbling World, Unrealistic Aspirations

Just when Shy thinks she’s blessed with enough pyaar, power and protein shaker, her world comes crumbling down following her beau’s declaration to stay away from the dream and change the trajectory of her shortcut to success.

Refusing to back down, she makes it her life’s mission to get her way while they’re all out and about competing at a college festival outside the city.

It doesn’t seem like Shy has the slightest idea of how much hard work her IIM and MBA aspirations entail, given how busy she keeps herself in extracurricular activities or plots petty schemes to hurt her friends.

Homage Or Wannabe?

Produced by the Bhatt sisters, Alia and Shaheen, Don’t Be Shy is set in the early 2010s before social media and smartphones took over the eyes and minds of the young and the restless.

A character squeals, this is not a Karan Johar movie but that’s exactly what it tries to be or should I say ‘wannabe’ in imagery that evokes down priced versions of Anjali-Tina in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Poo in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Naina in Kal Ho Naa Ho and Shanaya in Student of the Year.

Preoccupied in romanticising a self-proclaimed gold digger’s deception as ambition, even self-restraint — girlfriends don’t poop lest the boyfriend hears the sound of her go plop plop — Shy’s superficiality can live with constipation but not a commoner’s life. Her dark ideas of drollery would make for a splendid side of satire if it wasn’t so caught up in letting the confection meet its predictable conclusions.

Performances

Don’t Be Shy‘s forgettable fluff has a bunch of new faces to offer. There’s a lowkey charm about most of them even if 10 yearolds show more brains than these love fools in action.

Aarushi Bajaj’s live-action Lizzy McGuire isn’t on the same Lindsay Lohan level of wide-eyed, winsome wavelength but her sparkling presence and decent-ish acting carries off a great deal on her slender shoulder.

Piyush Khati conveys a mix of smug and silly while Ansh Duggal’s Ranveer Singh lite speaks at 0.25x speed.

The belated appearance of a ho-hum Bianca Arora teases an element of surprise but Don’t Be Shy has no excitement up its sleeve.

As for the seniors on the roster, Anurag Basu makes for a cute unassuming dad lost in his own world while Kunaal Roy Kapoor’s poker-faced wit goes for a Tina Fey style career counsellor vibe.

Mimicking a ’90s style teen campus Hollywood comedy inside a shuddh desi KJo template with oodles of Never Have I Ever brand of self-aware humour, writer-director Sreeti Mukerhi’s cliched coming-of-age delivers its moments of sass but never quite defines the age of confusion.

Don’t Be Shy streams on Prime Video.

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