Aanand L Rai's Nakhrewaalii brings laughs despite familiar plot and flaws

Plot And Direction

Director Rahul Shanklya and writer Divy Nidhi Sharma helm the new romantic comedy film Nakhrewaalii, produced by Aanand L Rai. The movie shares themes of gender swapping, cross dressing, and mistaken identity with Ayushmann Khurrana's Dream Girl 2. The story follows Sumit Mishra, played by Ansh Duggal, a lazy young man who moves to Delhi for higher studies after his girlfriend marries someone else. In Delhi, he meets Paridhi, played by Pragati Srivastava, the daughter of his landlord. Sumit has an outdated mindset about women, dividing them into categories for fun versus marriage. When he falls for Paridhi, he must secure a government job to win her parents' approval.

Performances And Flaws

Director Rahul Shanklya keeps the first half entertaining with funny one-liners and amusing sequences, while the second half maintains the laughter. The film features noticeable flaws, including a glaring visual continuity error where the male protagonist goes from clean-shaven in the morning to sporting a two to three day old stubble by the evening during a gender-swapping phase. In the cast, Ansh Duggal and Pragati Srivastava both show confident screen presence. Kumud Mishra plays a reliable government official, Gopal Datt plays Paridhi's father with funny one-liners, and Akash Makhija plays Sumit's best friend Jhaadi. The music comes from Vayu, Vaibhav Pani, Sharan Rawat, Gaurav Chatterji, and Tanishk Bagchi.

Context

Romantic comedies in Indian cinema often rely on classic tropes like mistaken identity and social commentary wrapped in humor. Production houses led by filmmakers like Aanand L Rai frequently back stories set in small-town or middle-class settings that mix traditional values with modern relationship struggles.