Somewhere in the second half of Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye, Raima Sen’s Maya tells screen husband Arbaaz Khan’s Vikram, “Bas bahut ho gaya hai”. And you smile wryly. Not because the demure housewife has at last stood up to her chauvinistic husband, but because “bas bahut ho gaya hai” is what you have been feeling in each of the 125 minutes that make up the tortuous Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye. Often regressive and unintentionally hilarious, Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye is a fantasy gone completely wrong. A film that tries to be hatke, but has a slight problem — it has no script (logical or otherwise), the performances range from disastrous to poor and the film is so boring that the yawns come at the rate of 40 per minute, clouding out most of what is happening on the screen in front of you. Which is a good thing. For the less you see of Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye, the better you snooze.

Raima plays a neglected homemaker and a mother of one whose MCP of a husband Arbaaz is having an affair with a carrot-chewing hottie (Karamchand, beware!). Forced to give up singing after marriage (“achchi ghar ki bahu naachgaana nahi karti,” says her husband), Raima’s Maya weaves a dream world around herself, fantasising what the tenant in the house opposite is going to be like (doesn’t make sense? Join the club). So out pops Randeep Hooda in faux fur and dressed like Cupid who lands at her doorstep asking for some milk in a wine goblet! (Yes, you read that right.) During the course of the next few days, Maya’s fantasy man reappears in various avatars and eggs her on to rediscover herself and build her own identity. The result? The simple “behenji” not only becomes a celebrated rockstar overnight, but also ditches her husband and falls in love with the man who magically transcends fantasy and moves into reality. The rest of the film is far worse.

Maya may be much like Raima’s own Mili in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, but lacks the spark that made Mili a treat. We hope a good pay packet was the only incentive for Arbaaz Khan to take up a role like this. And we wonder what compelled veterans like Anjan Srivastava and Suhasini Mulay to lend their names to a film like Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye. With VJs Neil Bhoopalam and Juhi trying to pass off as actors, Ekta Kapoor favourite Ashwini Kalsekar blinding you with her saris and makeup and Chak De! India’s Shubhi Mehta desperately attempting a sexy siren act, it only gets more agonising. But the worst is clearly Randeep Hooda. When he doesn’t bore us with his perpetual on-dope-drawl and fake accent, he shocks (and sickens) with his various avatars — he is Zorro one minute, a Mughal emperor the next, Elvis Presley on one occasion and finally James Bond (his “I am fond, very fond of you,” makes you cringe). Debutante director

Madhureeta Anand clearly needs to do a rethink before she ventures into another film set. For a film that is primarily about a singer, Lalit Pandit’s score is tolerable at its best and appalling at its worst. The background music is perhaps the worst one has heard in a long time, for what explanation can one give for a sitar playing a happy tune in the background when a husband is abusing his wife? The dialogues are no better. When confronted with her husband’s infidelity, Maya tells her neighbour: “Woh bure insaan nahi hai. Hamare graha kharab chal rahein hai.” Was she talking about the misfortune of the Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye viewer?