Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar: In Luv Ranjan’s film, everyone talks endlessly, but nobody communicates

Back to that climactic scene. His family packed into their Mercedes SUV, Mickey asks his sister to call Tinni up and let her know that they’re on the way. A logical decision. But his mother interrupts. “Ruk!” she screams. “Aath mahine torture jhel ke isliye nahi paida kiya tujhe ke ladki ko phone pe gidgida ke roke. Isliye jaa rahi hai chhod ke. Jo ladka phone pe roke, aise ladke ke saath koi bhi ladki kyun hona chahegi (Stop! I didn’t go through eight months of torture so that you can beg a girl over the phone. This is exactly why she’s leaving him. Why would any girl want to be with a guy who tries to stop her from leaving over the phone)?” Mickey’s mom shames him because the movie needs to end with a grand romantic gesture, but the entire time, you’re wondering why he can’t do both. What if they get held up in traffic? Guess who’ll have to ring Tinni up then?

What’s stranger is that Mickey can’t seem to shut up otherwise (perhaps because he has fully embraced the responsibility of being a Luv Ranjan hero). It’s almost as if Ranjan put together a focus group to watch his entire filmography, and left with the feedback that audiences seem to like it when his characters launch into breathless monologues. At one point, Mickey’s best friend Dabas and Tinni both plead with him to just shut up, for the love of God.

So, it’s odd when he discovers, by accident, that Tinni doesn’t want to be with him anymore. And instead of approaching her about it and trying to work things out — as one should — he puts together an elaborate scheme to get back at her. Tinni, by the way, makes equally illogical choices. Instead of telling Mickey why she cannot go through with the wedding — she feels overwhelmed by his clingy family — she lets things drag on to the very last moment before concocting a scenario that makes Mickey out to be the villain. She’s okay with her entire family having to face public humiliation only because she wants to protect her own image.

How did she decide that breaking up is their only option? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Tinni to voice her concerns to Mickey, and allow him to either make adjustments to his living situation or reject her proposal himself? She’d still find herself in the same exact position, but the film would’ve gained at least one believable dramatic scene. The film, however, is committed to presenting its hero as a saint, and cannot put Mickey in a position where he is made to choose between his family or the love of his life. Even when he’s taking the fall for Tinni’s decision to call off the engagement, Mickey is clearly meant to be seen as the all-sacrificing angel.

His comedic revenge plot is by far the most nonsensical stretch in an already nonsensical movie, and I’m convinced that it exists purely to facilitate a Kartik Aaryan cameo. This stretch has no relevance to the story, and if anything, it makes both Mickey and Tinni even more unlikeable than they already were.

But Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, a movie that abandons established tone with the carelessness of a rich brat half-heartedly contemplating alternate career options, is prone to changing lanes. For instance, there are only 11 minutes separating the Arjijit Singh tearjerker “O Bedardeya” — this is when Mickey and Tinni break up on day of their engagement — and the party anthem “Show Me the Thumka”, during which they rekindle their romance. Eleven minutes, I checked. The narrative whiplash is so strong that tickets to Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar should come with a complimentary neck brace.

On several occasions, Ranjan begins explaining some of his wildest storytelling choices himself, almost as if he’s preempting the very valid questions you might have about them. For instance, when Tinni first confesses why she forced Mickey to break up with her, she admits that she was wary of coming across as the villain. But that’s Ranjan’s insecurity about writing female characters coming to the fore, and it’s unfair for him to assume that audiences will complain about this when they don’t have to. Funnily enough, he finds a way to vilify Tinni despite going out of his way to avoid doing this.

Had he simply allowed her to be honest, Mickey would’ve slipped into irredeemable territory for not being receptive to her concerns about living with his family (which he ultimately still is, by the way). Instead, he launches into yet another monologue about how important his folks are to him. “Main kissi sense of responsibility ya acha bachcha banne ke liye nahi rehta unke saath. Mujhe pasand hai unke saath rehna,” he says. Again, this is Ranjan reading your thoughts and beating you to it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Mickey is, indeed, a child for not having said this before the two-hour-nine-minute mark. In the end, Mickey doesn’t budge, and Tinni compromises on her beliefs anyway, so what even was the point of all this?

In a better film, this level of miscommunication would have been almost tragic. But in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, it happens only because Ranjan couldn’t find a more graceful way to propel the plot. It’s a deceitful way to tell a story, but we should’ve seen it coming. The title gave it away.