Hasee Toh Phasee is a fresh and smart romantic story that defies stereotypes at several points. The film breaks stereotypes in its due course: Parineeti is a drug addict and a rebel, on the other hand, Siddharth plays almost a funny personal assistant to his girlfriend, simply to avoid a break-up! Hasee Toh Phasee gets better in the second half where you are treated with well-balanced melodrama and humour. Especially, the sequence where Sharat Saxena interrogates Parineeti has the elements in the perfect mix. While there is a clear indication of the beginning of romance between Siddharth and Parineeti, ACP Pradyuman and Daya-gyan from CID keeps the audience smiling. The dialogues, co-written by Anurag Kashyap and Vinil Mathew, are impressive and have a character of their own. There is no extra-melodrama, yet the movie is emotional. There are no crass jokes, yet it is humourous and to top it all, there are no love making scenes, yet the movie defines romance it its own style! It is an experimental rom-com that should not be missed.

Hasee Toh Phasee should work just fine for the urban multiplex crowd it intends to please. Humour is a significant tool in the plot progression. The fun factor spans witty to slapsticky to, in the rare scene, a shade silly. Too bad the overt melodrama in the end disturbs the overall breezy vibes. A lot of K.Jo, a bit of AK. Vinil Mathew's debut feature, co-produced by Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap, juggles the extremes of feel-good and feel-real before determinedly taking the K.Jo route to a climax meant to please all. Box-office does matter. Sidharth and Parineeti look good together and their easy chemistry is made all the more endearing thanks to some quirky dialogue exchanges. Adah Sharma does a fine job playing second fiddle to Parineeti, confidently offsetting the latter's eccentric appeal. Smile and get phasaao-ed by this one. It is a different flavour of candyfloss.

It is an unpretentious little odd-couple romantic comedy. But the plot of Hasee Toh Phasee is a conundrum that takes some doing to crack. All this unfolds over a period of two decades. But that definitely isn’t difficult to figure out. The film provides clear pointers to its chronology and geography. Mercifully, Hasee Toh Phasee, notwithstanding its rather unimaginative title and its muddled core, is a mildly diverting, if somewhat woolly-headed, entertainer held together by its unapologetically absurdist spirit. The film works primarily because the lead pair is in fine fettle, flowing along with the unstoppable tide of fluffiness while adding their own angularities to the proceedings. The multiple cross-connections that occur as the film meanders to its predictable climax are bizarre. If you do not let the occasional lapses in logic get in the way, you might actually find yourself enjoying the film. Do check it out. Hasee Toh Phasee is a watchable, if not scintillating, film.

Socho mein idea hoti aur tum technology, humari patang kya mast udti na?” coos Parineeti Chopra in one of Hasee Toh Phasee’s *many* winning scenes. She could well be speculating about the outcome of a collaboration between Karan Johar’s spunk and Anurag Kashyap’s ingenuity. These two prolific filmmakers with diametrically dissimilar body of work, along with co-producers, Vikramaditya Motwane and Vikas Bahl jointly spearhead what I found to be a delightful romance comedy.  Directed by Vinil Mathew and based on Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s story/screenplay, Hasee Toh Phasee takes a familiar premise -- two people on the brink of tying the knot and introduces a third party to cause expected stir. Only it doesn’t happen like it used to. Instead how everything transpires is Hasee Toh Phasee in a nutshell. Hasee Toh Phasee is that rare film that allows you to know the two people you’re investing in. And the closer you get, the more they win you over. And Parineeti sinks her teeth into this misunderstood kook without a trace of self-consciousness or exaggeration. It’s love at first sight the moment she appears on screen, caught between a complex wire fence, in short hair and glasses, as though she was returning from some dress-up-like-Harry Potter cult. If that’s not magical enough, what Hasee Toh Phasee celebrates certainly is. That the only high you need is life, love and smiles.

‘Hasee Toh Phasee’. It seems to have everything going for it. The smart, varying sensibilities of co-producers Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap, a likeable leading man, and a crackerjack heroine. What it doesn’t have is a coherent story.  The loose, random plotting, and motivation, lets them down. Some solid supporting acts– Manoj Joshi , as the father of the bride, a curly-haired comic as the relative of the groom—go waste. There’s also the crucial thing about spark : why are our love stories so chary about showing throbbing passion? In a stand-out scene, which has Meeta and Nikhil high in the sky in a picture-perfect Valentine Day Hallmark card-type setting, we see the start of something. And then there is a thud, and the film takes them into an entirely different ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ alley with enraged uncles who have no compunction about slapping young girls across the face. And sobbing mothers yelling about ‘ghar ki izzat’. Did I also hear a ‘door ho jaao meri nazaron se’? Even if I didn’t, it would have fit right in with the scene. What is this, a dated four-hanky tear-jerker? When, dear Bollywood, when will we get a real, rousing rom com? 

Hasee Toh Phasee is for the romantics who like their martinis stirred not shaken. Debutant director Vinil Mathew's straight-forward approach is smart and fresh; his characters are lovable. Nikhil(Sidharth Malhotra) is an optimist, who believes once committed, there's no straying. Meeta( Parineeti Chopra) is a non-conformist; she's a go-getter in her personal and professional space. Naturally Nikhil and Meeta's ideologies don't match. But there's an under-current in their equation that keeps the audience hoping they that they will seek each other out. This romantic comedy mirrors the quirks in human nature subtly and provides humour in everyday situations; in the family and amongst friends. Parineeti's relationship with her father(Manoj Joshi, in fine form) strikes the right emotional chord. The songs--Shake It like Shammi and the Punjabi Wedding Song add zing to an otherwise simple narrative. Parineeti who has come to represent the power-house performer passes with flying colours. And, Sidharth, whose good-looks distract, shows a definitive growth in his second outing as an actor after Student of the Year. If you're looking to rediscover the magic of goofy love around Valentines, give HTP a shot.