Veere Di Wedding—starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Talsania—opened to packed movie halls on Friday. Directed by Shashanka Ghosh, this “buddy comedy” with an all-female cast has been one of the most awaited films of the year for various reasons. First, because it marks Kareena’s comeback after a brief maternity break; second, it is Sonam’s first film after marriage; and third, for the storyline and the themes it is said to explore.
Talking about the subject of the film and why it shouldn’t be categorised as a chick flick, Swara, during the film’s promotional event in Delhi, said, “Any film which is headlined by a woman, we make it into a chick flick. But do we call a film that stars a man in the lead a dude flick? If we can’t put male-centric films in this one single category, then why have we made this one category for Veere Di Wedding and other women-centric films?”
To this, Sonam added, “It is the first time that four mainstream actresses are doing a film together. I think that is empowering in itself… The film is about four regular women and these four characters could have been played by men as well. But it is a very entertaining film and I think people will be able to identify with the characters.”
The film, which has been passed with an “A certificate”, has also received criticism for its use of cuss words. While Sonam has maintained that “swearing is a colloquial language”, Shikha at the Delhi event said, “I don’t think the language that the characters in our film are using is bold. It is how everybody speaks with their friends. So I don’t think we were trying to be bold with that. We were trying to tell a story which was very relatable, which is about four friends and their lives.”
Since the film also explores the theme of marriage, Sonam, when asked how the concept of marriage has changed over the years, answered, “I don’t know about the whole of India because India predominantly is a patriarchal country. But I know about Mumbai and other major cities, where marriage is more of a partnership in which both spouses work partially, because of shared expenses, and partially because of the woman’s ambition.”
Positive about the future of women-centric films, Sonam said, “I think films like Ki & Ka, Neerja or Raazi, which have done very well at the box office and had females as leads, give more incentives to producers to invest their money in such films. At the end of the day, filmmaking is a business. So I hope that a commercially entertaining film like Veere Di Wedding, which headlines four mainstream actresses, does well, so that people put more money into movies like these.”