Dolly Ki Doli Movie Review

Director: Abhishek Dogra

Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Pulkit Samrat, Varun Sharma, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub

Dolly Ki Doli is a charming, genuinely funny comedy about a serial bride named Dolly. Dolly, played by Sonam Kapoor, is a thief. She and her gang set up marriages with gullible grooms, who are then given drug-laced milk on the suhaag raat. They sleep. She steals and decamps with jewellery, clothes, furniture and, in one case, even the chain from one father-in-law's neck and the underclothes of a mother-in-law. To which a member of her gang says: "Saas ki bra panty toh chhod de."

Dolly Ki Doli is, above all, the success of script. Writer-director Abhishek Dogra and co-writer Umashankar Singh take a somewhat silly story, add crackling dialogue and sharp characters, and serve up dollops of laughs. Some of the best lines are asides. My favourite gag is the one with the gang 'grandmother', an elderly, senile daadi who can only repeat one line — "Beti de di, sab kuchh de diya".

The film has terrific actors: Rajkummar Rao plays a Haryanvi farmer who loves Dolly despite everything. Varun Sharma is the mama's boy with an over-active libido. The always excellent Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub is Raju. And Brijendra Kala plays a cop. Surrounded by these men, Sonam lifts her game. She's all sunshine and sexiness but also imbues Dolly with an inherent likeability and inner strength.

What Dolly does is awful, but you are rooting for her to get away with it.