Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 is a humourless romcom weighed down by lazy writing and forced emotional conflicts, sighs Sreeju Sudhakaran.

IMAGE: Medha Shankr and Avinash Tiwary in Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 .

Key Points

• Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 is a spiritual sequel of Ginny Weds Sunny (2020), featuring a new cast and director.
• The plot follows a predictable trajectory of a mismatched couple, Sunny and Ginny, navigating misunderstandings before an inevitable reconciliation.
• Despite a sincere performance from Avinash Tiwary, the film suffers from tonal inconsistencies and a lack of genuine emotional growth.

We do love turning anything into a franchise, don't we?

Now we have Ginny Wedss Sunny 2, directed by Prasshant Jha, which serves as a spiritual sequel to the 2020 film Ginny Weds Sunny.

The first film, starring Vikrant Massey and Yami Gautam, arrived directly on Netflix during the first wave of COVID-19 and, like many such releases, faded quickly from the collective memory. I had almost forgotten about it until the trailer of this sequel surfaced.

This time, everything is different. The cast has changed, the director is new, the title comes with an extra hiss sound, and the storyline has no direct continuation (the movie is also releasing in theatres this time).

The only common thread is that the leads still go by pet names and the narrative revolves around a mismatched couple struggling to make their relationship work.

While my recollection of the original is faint, I would like to believe it had some redeeming quality that convinced the makers to extend it into a franchise. Ginny Wedss Sunny 2, however, is a franchise killer.

What's the Plot of Ginny Wedss Sunny 2?

Shivansh, aka Sunny (Avinash Tiwary), is a school dropout from Rishikesh whose dreams of becoming a national-level wrestler collapse due to a fake scandal.

Five years later, he runs a handicrafts shop and struggles to find a bride, largely because of that lingering controversy.

It does not help that his expectations from a partner are rooted in a regressive ideal of a 'simple, homely' woman like his late mother.

Geethanjali, aka Ginny (Medha Shankr), is the complete opposite. She is a party-loving, tequila-drinking Delhi girl who works at a call centre and carries emotional baggage from past relationships. Their families connect through matrimonial ads, and the match is fixed.

Both sides, however, conceal key truths about their children, which predictably leads to cracks in the marriage almost immediately after the wedding.

Poor Attempts at Humour

You can sense trouble when a film marketed as a comedy relies heavily on its background score to cue laughter.

Instead of trusting its humour, Ginny Wedss Sunny 2 inserts exaggerated sound effects after almost every punchline, as if desperately reminding the audience that a joke has just been delivered.

The bigger issue is that the humour itself rarely works. Much of it consists of characters talking over each other, indulging in weak puns or jokes (like comparing a man's privates to TV remotes), or resorting to physical antics like kicking and biting.

The actors try their best, but the writing and editing leave them stranded, unable to generate genuine laughs.

Ironically, I found some of the background details more engaging than what was unfolding in the foreground. In one scene where Sunny is venting to his best friend (Rohit Chaudhary) at his shop, a painting of Van Gogh's Starry Night hangs behind him, perhaps intended to mirror his emotional turmoil.

Elsewhere, a chai stall, amusingly named 'Smrity ka Piyush Chaiwala', features menu items like Pyaar Mein Dhokha Chai and Manchaaha Pyaar Paane Ki Chai.

Or perhaps I am simply reaching, trying to find something worthwhile in what is otherwise a humourless stretch of storytelling.

Predictability and Inconsistencies

Beyond the failed comedy, the plot is a predictable tale of a mismatched couple navigating misunderstandings before arriving at an inevitable reconciliation. Predictability is not the problem here. The issue is that the conflicts and character arcs feel lazily constructed.

For instance, while Sunny's family's desperation to get him married is understandable, I was left wondering why Ginny's mother (Lillette Dubey) is so eager to marry her daughter into a household that clearly prefers her to be uneducated and expects her to make rotis during their very first meeting.