2 States Review

One Line Review: An entertaining and engaging film adaptation of the popular book, but could have been even better.

Positive Points: Engaging plot; entertaining execution of the story; performances that suit the characters; funny dialogues and humorously awkward situations.

Negative Points: The film becomes a bit stretchy at the end; the entertainment quotient falls short.

Plot: Krish Malhotra (Arjun Kapoor) is a young and geeky IITian studying management in IIM Ahmedabad, where he meets and soon befriends Ananya Swaminathan (Alia Bhatt), a bubbly but determined girl from a Tamil Brahmin family. He helps her with economics and soon they start studying together which develops into a good friendship which no sooner blossoms into true love.

Soon they commit a long term relationship to each other but see things going adversely during their convocation when their parents don't perceive each other well. Krish's mother Kavita (Amrita Singh) is very skeptical and suspecting of the 'Madrassis' and Ananya's parents, including her mother (Revathi) consider Punjabis as uncultured.

Now Krish chooses to move to Chennai, so that he can continue to meet Ananya and in the process gets well acquainted with her family. Finally, after helping her father with his bank work, her brother with his IIT entrance and her mother with singing, he wins her family's trust and is able to convince them to let him marry her.

However, when it comes to introducing Anaya with his family, things don't go well as his mother is already a skeptic and a hater and his father (Ronit Roy) with whom he has a strained relationship, is unbothered and indifferent.

Finally, they decide to let both the sides meet and understand each other so that they can finally let them marry. Whether they reconcile with each other or not and their attempt of helping their families to clear their pre-conceived notions and misunderstandings is narrated in further tale.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: Chetan Bhagat's popular book '2 States' has been captured perfectly in the film adaptation. Anyone who may have read the book, can easily relate to the scenes in the film correspondingly. However, the film falls short of the entertainment quotient that one is actively looking for. One may surely feel that it could have been much better.

In addition, the film also becomes a bit stretchy by the end. It almost becomes a story telling through video by the end.

Performances: Arjun Kapoor performs well his role as a geeky student from Delhi, but is still bland and not much impressive.

Alia Bhatt is more expressive in this film, but does not impress much either.

Amrita Singh succeeds in portraying the role of a narrow minded and eccentric Punjabi mother, always wanting to control his son's life.

Though Ronit Roy's role was limited in the film, his performance was undoubtedly the best of all.

Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy have done a good job with refreshingly new 'Offo' which is the first song in the film. 'Locha E Ulfat' is a good one too, which comes next.

'Mast Magan' is a soulful and calming track in the film. However, 'Iski Uski' which is a Punjabi styled wedding song doesn't match up with others.

Final Verdict: '2 States' unfortunately does not match up with the expectations of most of the movie goers who are definitely looking for something exciting and new with the film adaptation of the book. Though the performances are at the place, the story and entertainment factor does not give so much as it could have been.