Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari is a determinedly old-fashioned comedy revolving around arranged marriage and disorder caused by love. Abhishek Shar...
Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari is a determinedly old-fashioned comedy revolving around arranged marriage and disorder caused by love. Abhishek Sharma’s movie is set in 1995 in the city once known as Bombay. This was the year the megapolis was renamed Mumbai and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was released. Nineties cinema had many examples of reckless romances in which lovers mutinied against the elements that were conspiring to keep them apart. Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari namechecks some of these films but picks the conservative DDLJ as its lodestar.
The movie’s value system, however, seems to date back even further. Its chief characters are a detective who digs up the dirt on prospective grooms, the heir to a dairy business who wants a comely, traditional wife, and a woman who agrees to marry whoever her family picks for her.
The story is by Shokhi Banerjee and the screenplay by Rohan Shankar. Ace shamus Madhu Mangal Rane (Manoj Bajpayee) ensures that the wrong kind of man isn’t wedded to the right kind of woman. Among his targets is Suraj (Diljit Dosanjh), a not-too-bright but eager-to-marry gent who is caught unawares on the one day he decides to behave badly.
Suraj wants revenge, but changes his mind after he meets Madhu’s sister Tulsi (Fatima Sana...
