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Don’t Be Shy reminds one of Karan Johar’s Student of the Year and Zoya Akhtar's The Archies. A typical high-school drama where there’s love, heartbreak, enough drama to fill a semester with everything, except studies. And that's where the similarities end. What follows is far less glossy and far more chaotic. Certainly not the campus fantasy you might expect.
For the first half hour of the film, I was honestly struggling to figure out what exactly it was trying to say. The story revolves around Shyamali ‘Shy’ Das (Aarushi Bajaj), who dreams of making it big in life by piggybacking on her boyfriend Mayank Jhunjhunwala (Piyush Khati), the heir to a billionaire family. But all her plans come crashing down when he suddenly breaks up with her. Shy sets out on a path of revenge and soon crosses paths with his new girlfriend, Tara (Bianca Arora). How a teenage girl eventually comes into her own forms the crux of the rest of the story.
This teenybopper film doesn't quite know how to fully embrace its genre. It does, however, pretend to know Gen Z inside out. For instance, did you know that a committed young guy's protein shaker is apparently the exclusive property of his girlfriend, and if it's spotted in the hands of another girl, it's enough to set the entire school gossip mill on fire? At the risk of sounding old, I can say with confidence that this film is strictly meant for an audience under 15.
Director Sreeti Mukerji, who also writes the film, has little to offer beyond the most basic teenage tropes. The film wants to be a window into teenage frustration and that oh-so-pure optimism about the future, but it barely scratches the surface. Instead, we get the usual cool parents dancing to old songs, the predictable tug-of-war between the cool guy and the quiet guy, and a protagonist caught between them. None of it feels remotely fresh. It is less an honest portrayal of teenagers and more an adult's idea of what teenagers are supposed to be like.
The performances are a mixed bag. Aarushi Bajaj, in her debut, does justice to the role of a confused teenager, while Bianca Arora holds her own as Tara. Piyush Khati as Mayank and Ansh as Dhruv also make confident debuts.
However, the film is also cluttered with characters who barely add anything to the plot. Kunal Roy Kapur, as school professor Mr Q, is given little to do, while filmmaker Anurag Basu, playing Shy’s father, gets an equally unimportant part. He gets just enough screen time to be his usual fun self, but the character contributes little to the story.
The music by Ram Sampath is breezy as it plays, but doesn't stay with you post the film.
Overall, Don’t Be Shy feels it has all the ingredients of a coming-of-age story, but doesn't figure out how to put them together. There are glimpses of a more interesting film buried beneath the teenage anger, but undercut by a boring screenplay. The young cast brings enough energy to keep things moving, but little here feels fresh. It may find some connect with its intended teenage audience, though for everyone else, it feels like a long school assembly on a subject you stopped caring about halfway through.
Don't Be Shy is streaming on Amazon Prime Video
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