Ayushmann Khurrana's glasses in the first twenty minutes of Bewakoofiyaan have this slightly greasy smudge right on the left hinge that nobody in the camera department apparently bothered to wipe, and if I'm honest, that tiny distraction pretty much set the tone for how I watched the rest of the picture unfold. You are sitting there trying to care about the modern financial anxieties of a young corporate climber in Gurgaon while getting fixated on a smudge that survives three distinct lighting changes and at least one emotional confrontation about credit card bills. It is not great, not bad, just there, idling in neutral while the actors sweat through dialogue that sounds like it was written by someone who read a single PDF about the global recession and decided they were qualified to pen a romantic comedy about it. Hindi cinema has tackled economic disparity and shifting urban landscapes with actual teeth before, but here the stakes feel entirely manufactured by people who have never had to choose between paying rent and buying groceries. You get the sense that the filmmakers wanted to capture the zeitgeist of the post-2008 middle class squeeze without actually bothering to make the characters look like they were missing any meals. Mohit Sehgal is a marketing guy at an airline, Mayera Sehgal works high-end retail, and they live in apartments that cost enough to fund a small independent film. When the script tries to convince us that they are strapped for cash because Mayera's dad has cut her off, the movie asks for a level of suspension of disbelief that stretches thinner than the plot itself.

Director Nupur Asthana shoots the whole thing with the flat, brightly lit sheen of a long-form commercial for a high-end kitchen appliance brand where nothing ever looks lived-in or messy. Habib Faisal's screenplay keeps trying to ground the bubblegum romance in the grim realities of the Delhi NCR real estate market and skyrocketing petrol prices, but the tonal gears grind against each other constantly. You cannot have your leads debating the precise mechanics of a 700-rupee hike in fuel costs while they are lounging in a sprawling Gurgaon duplex that clearly rents for more than a senior government official's monthly salary. The jokes about EMIs and credit limits land with a dull thud because the visual grammar of the film constantly contradicts the dialogue. Rishi Kapoor plays the formidable, old-school father V.K. Sehgal with the kind of blustery, old-school authority that saves entire sequences from drowning in corporate jargon, though even he looks occasionally confused about why his character is being such an absolute monster over a guy whose main crime is having a slightly rocky career trajectory and a mediocre savings account. Kapoor brings a specific kind of exasperated paternal energy that recalls his better work in Do Dooni Chaar, anchoring the domestic scenes with a grounded friction that the younger leads simply cannot match. He plays off Sonam Kapoor with a genuine chemistry that feels far more earned than the romance at the center of the narrative, giving the family dynamics an irritatingly high level of believability that makes you wish the movie had just abandoned the office plots entirely and focused on a strict drawing-room comedy about a grumpy retired bureaucrat and his modern daughter.

Sonam Kapoor spends half the runtime wearing clothes that look like they were yanked straight off a Paris runway five minutes before call time, which makes her various complaints about being broke feel entirely detached from physical reality. She plays Mayera with a breezy, somewhat detached confidence that works when she is chewing out a store manager or bossing around her boyfriend, but when the script demands actual tears over an unpaid electricity bill, the disconnect becomes glaring. Ayushmann Khurrana tries his best to inject some nervous energy into Mohit, sweating through his shirts and pacing around hotel lobbies with the frantic desperation of a man who just realized he forgot his wallet, yet he is constantly fighting a losing battle against a character arc that makes very little internal sense. Mohit goes from a confident, slick corporate player to a pathetic, insecure mess the second his salary takes a slight hit, and Khurrana is never given the transitional scenes required to make that descent feel earned rather than sudden and petulant. The supporting cast populates the background with typical Bollywood movie tropes: the gossipy colleagues, the judgmental store owners, the wealthy ex-suitor lurking in the wings with a shiny car and a bigger bank account. None of them leave much of an impression beyond filling the frame when the leads need someone to talk to about their financial woes over an overpriced cup of cappuccino.

The soundtrack by Raghu Dixit has this irritating habit of inserting upbeat, strumming acoustic numbers right in the middle of arguments about debt consolidation, neutralizing any dramatic tension that managed to build up in the previous scene. Cinematographer Anshuman Mahale frames everything in primary colors that pop off the screen with aggressive cheerfulness, ignoring the drab, fluorescent-lit misery of actual corporate cubicles in favor of glossy, aspirational aesthetic choices. You look at these impeccably manicured office spaces and wonder what kind of recession these people are actually experiencing, because nobody in this universe ever seems to sweat through their clothes without looking like they stepped out of a luxury lifestyle magazine. There is a recurring background score cue that plays whenever Mohit checks his bank balance on his phone, a tinny little synth chime that started grating on my nerves by the third repetition and didn't let up until the final reels. Hindi films often struggle to marry contemporary middle-class struggles with the grand, escapist traditions of the romance genre, and Bewakoofiyaan stumbles hardest right at that exact seam, treating poverty like a quirky temporary obstacle that can be solved with a catchy montage and a heart-to-heart conversation in a public park.

At its core, the movie wants to say something interesting about how shifting gender dynamics and career success affect modern Indian relationships, but it gets bogged down in clichés about ego and parental approval. When V.K. Sehgal sets up a series of increasingly humiliating trials for Mohit to prove his worth as a prospective son-in-law, the film momentarily turns into a sitcom-style gauntlet that feels entirely divorced from the economic anxiety it spent the first hour pretending to care about. The script cannot decide whether it wants to be a biting satire of urban consumerism or a safe, middle-of-the-road romantic comedy where everything gets resolved in time for a happy wedding sequence. That hesitation drains the narrative of any real bite, leaving behind a bland confection that goes down easy enough if you have nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon. There is a minor subplot involving a stray dog that gets adopted and then completely disappears for forty minutes of runtime before popping back up in the climax to facilitate a reconciliation, and small structural gaps like that litter the second half. You can almost see the editor's hand frantically trying to stitch together scenes that were clearly shot out of order or trimmed to meet a manageable runtime for multiplex audiences. It all culminates in a predictable airport-style dash that lacks any of the genuine cinematic urgency of better romantic comedies, relying entirely on the residual charm of its cast to carry viewers across the finish line.

By the time the credits roll, Bewakoofiyaan leaves very little footprint in the mind, dissolving into the ether of forgettable urban comedies that pop up on streaming algorithms three years after release. Rishi Kapoor's cantankerous dad remains the sole reason to stick around through the lulls, proving once again that a good actor can elevate even the most half-baked dialogue simply by committing entirely to the bit with a scowl and a raised eyebrow. The rest of it floats by like a mildly pleasant breeze that you barely notice until it is gone, leaving you to wonder why anyone bothered to set a movie about financial ruin in a world that looks this aggressively expensive. It is a minor blip in a genre that usually demands much higher emotional stakes, and if you happen to skip it, you are not missing anything beyond a few decent line readings and Rishi Kapoor glaring at a smartphone screen.