Shubh Mangal Mein Dangal review: Web series has good concept and performances, but a bad script with lame dialogues kill it

2/5

Story:

A couple, Vishwanath aka Vishu and Mitali get their families to believe that they are having an arranged marriage. While things just seem to fall in place, they are faced with another major challenge - lockdown due to COVID-19. The way the couple manages to not disappoint their guests and get married forms the rest of the story.

Review:

The series opens with beautiful scenery of a historical place where Vishu and Mitali are having a few romantic moments. Mitali then asks Vishu, 'shaadi ke baad aise he chupke se milte rahoge na? (Will you meet me secretly even after the wedding?)', in a light mood, which gets you wondering what's happening for a bit. But it gets revealed soon that they are getting married to each other only. They have managed to make their families believe that they are having an arranged marriage, while they have been in a relationship for two years.

As they start preparing for the wedding, the nationwide lockdown is announced due to the pandemic. They are then seen struggling to get married, dealing with restrictions. Vishu and Mitali force the families to get them married as planned and not postpone. Since the number of guests at a wedding is limited to 50, as per the government orders, they face the challenge of cutting down the number of people on their guest list. They call their guests, inviting them and the relatives are seen refusing, making some or the other reason. It only gets you to wonder how is that even possible in an Indian wedding. But they all suddenly land up at the house of the groom surprising everyone. The families then face the wrath of the police and municipal corporation officials, who visit the venue on hearing the news about violations, but they soon disperse conveniently as they are blackmailed by either the women of the house, who are their lovers, or receive commands from some minister. The person who informs the police and municipal corporation is revealed too soon in the story, and later, she only blackmails the municipal corporation head to allow the wedding to happen.

Though the story is centered around the pandemic, there is no reference to it other than in some dialogues. They could have had a few guests at least holding masks or tried a bit of comedy around the pandemic. While the concept is good and sometimes, over the top drama can be fun to watch, the poor writing has affected the entire story. The dialogues are mostly cliche and barely get one to laugh. It rather can annoy you many times. When a bad script is written, even good performances cannot help save the show. And, that's the case with Shubh Mangal Mein Dangal too. It seems like torture and can be the worst punishment or the best dare for the people you do not like to watch the series, if you do not enjoy over-the-top drama. The way things come around in the end, is even worse.

The highlight of the series is its costumes and great sets. The show at least looks visually appealing because of that. The series has only six episodes of about 20 minutes each.

Verdict:

The series is not really watch-worthy unless you seldomly enjoy over-the-top drama and lame dialogues. No judgements here!