Bhool Chuk Maaf movie review: Rajkummar Rao’s time loop film is confused

Director: Karan Sharma

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Wamiqa Gabbi 

Recommended For You

'Fatigued' Bollywood actor Govinda discharged from hospital

Seven Mayfair unveils Dh1 billion Development ‘Mayfair Nexus’ in Wadi Al Safa 7 with a drone show

Record-breaking US shutdown ends as political fallout begins

UAE weather: Fair to partly cloudy skies; lowest temperature 23°C in Dubai

Design You Can Feel: ASUS Brings Emotion Back to Technology at Dubai Design Week 2025

 

Rating: 2.5 stars

Somewhere — if you squint hard enough — there’s a seed of a good idea and a beating heart in Maddock Films’ latest release, Bhool Chuk Maaf. But the final product leaves both its characters and its audience baffled. What is it exactly? A satire? A social drama? A time-loop fantasy? A lament on unemployment and the obsession with government jobs? A timid plea for communal harmony? Or all of the above?

After watching it, I’m still not sure. This is a film that reveals its core only in the second half of the second half. By this point, your curiosity has packed up and left the near-empty theatre.

Set in Varanasi, Bollywood’s current favourite small town, the story revolves around Ranjan Tiwari (Rajkummar Rao) and Titli Mishra (Wamiqa Gabbi), two star-crossed lovers who initially elope to get married despite their families knowing each other well. That plan fails but as you know from the trailer, Titli’s dad agrees to the wedding so long as Ranjan snags a government job. His failed attempts lead him to a fixer named Bhagwan who assures him of a job in exchange for some cash. If the makers thought it was a clever metaphor for humans seeking divine intervention as a quick fix to their problems instead of working towards a solution, it’s rather lame. Anyway, our hero agrees and the wedding is on but then comes a bizarre twist that sees him get stuck in a time loop, resettling to the day of his Haldi ceremony. The day repeats endlessly till the time Ranjan understands the true spiritual message and tries to make amends. This involves rescuing a Muslim man and learning lessons on unemployment. Strange? You bet!

Time loop films are fairly common in Hollywood with movies like Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow and Source Code making a mark. In Bollywood, the theme has been less explored though a few like Taapsese Pannu’s Loop Lapeta (2022) and the Tamil hit Maanadu (2021) flirted with the idea. These themes can be fun if handled well — the “handled well” part being crucial.

Bhool Chuk Maaf, directed and written by Karan Sharma, travels a strange path, with the shift in tonality so stark you’re left genuinely wondering what’s going on. It starts off as a very typical Tier-B romance between a sharp-tongued girl and a fumbling boy. All the predictable elements are present: the Varanasi ghats, a house by the Ganges, a generous dose of religiosity, ultra-colourful streets, a sprawling family, bumbling male friends, and Seema Pahwa and Raghubir Yadav as the obligatory parents. There’s even a (totally unnecessary) item number.

The first shift arrives with the time loop. Rao wanders about in confusion while everyone else remains oblivious to his growing frustration. But the sequence drags on without any real sense of direction or purpose, making it hard to stay involved. Then comes the third act — featuring an attempted suicide, an allusion to India’s severe unemployment problem, a sudden realisation, and attempts at redemption. Naturally, the climax unfolds at a wedding, complete with misunderstandings, melodrama and the only tool Bollywood seems to trust for changing deep-rooted mindsets: a loud lecture.

At the end of it all, there is only one thought that comes to mind — another opportunity lost.

Bollywood has long abandoned its knack for telling original stories. Even when handed a relatively fresh concept (to the best of my knowledge, Bhool Chuk Maaf isn’t a remake), the makers struggle to craft a simple, entertaining film with a coherent message. The marketing didn’t help either — social media posts and trailers pitched it as yet another UP-based fam-com (family comedy) from the Ayushmann Khurrana school of cinema. So when the fantasy element and social messaging show up, they take you by surprise. Ironically, for a film sold as a comedy, the only moments that truly hold your attention are the serious ones — and even those are weighed down by heavy-handed lecturing. Why must everything be spelled out in a Hindi film? Why can’t the message emerge organically, through story and character? We’ll never know!

Amidst all the confusion, your heart goes out to Rao. He’s as sincere as ever, but his Ranjan feels like a pale echo of Stree’s Vicky. Blame it on the weak writing. And why this obsession with making him rattle off a few lines at breakneck speed - à la Stree?

As for the rest of the cast, Raghubir Yadav and Seema Pahwa could play small-town parents in their sleep, and the script gives them little to chew on. The same goes for the ever-reliable Sanjay Mishra, who tries to inject energy into a cameo. And then there’s the heroine. Wamiqa Gabbi is a genuinely talented actor, but her character here is so flat, she barely registers.

Bhool Chuk Maaf falls squarely into the ‘meh’ category — films that are harmless and inoffensive, but so devoid of sharpness, wit or even a surprising twist that they just drift past you. There’s clearly an attempt to say something meaningful about second chances, working hard, faith and human decency, but the storytelling is too bland. The end credits, like most movies these days, feature a song with the leads. In this case, the track is a reworking of the delightful Chor Bazaari from the Saif Ali Khan-Deepika Padukone-starrer Love Aaj Kal. Seriously, Bollywood, are you so bereft of imagination that you need to revise a 2009 chartbuster for a 2025 film?