Rajkummar Rao plays a small-time guy in this film. Done. Rajkummar Rao plays an honest government official in this film. Done. Rajkummar Rao’s film revolves around a wedding. Done, Done and Done.

Let’s face it, the only reason you might want to watch Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana this weekend is this 33-year-old Everyman’s actor whose presence in a film in the last couple of years has become a sort of ISI mark of quality.

And he doesn’t disappoint either in Shaadi..., a film that disappoints on all other counts. But one wonders what prompted Rajkummar to pick up a script that goes nowhere (actually it goes everywhere) and a role that he himself must be bored of playing by now — a nice guy in small-town India.

Memories of Behen Hogi Teri, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Newton, Dolly Ki Doli and even Queen abound as one watches this film by debutante director Ratnaa Sinha.

Here he is Satyendra (Sattu for short), a decent young chap in Kanpur about to start his life as a government clerk, a fact his family proudly parrots at every opportunity. Kriti Kharbanda — you have last seen and forgotten her in Raaz: Reboot and Guest Iin London — is Arti, an MA topper who is forced to go see boys for an arranged marriage by her father.

The two meet and there’s instant chemistry. He doesn’t want a wife who will cook and clean for him, he wants a wife who will be his friend for life. She wants a husband who will let her work after marriage and take her out for movies every week. How cute.

They say yes to the wedding. And then logic leaves the script.

The nice guy and his professor dad don’t want to take dowry. The mother overrules. They finally ask for Rs 25 lakh. The girl’s father, played pat by the dependable Govind Namdev, agrees to it with folded hands, because how else will they find a good groom?

Boy and girl continue to romance till D-day, the D-word (dowry, that is) not playing the villain, as one would have expected.

The twist comes from another obsession of Indians — the civil services exams. Arti secretly clears it and the results come out on their wedding day. But only that morning, her would-be mother-in-law has laid down the law — no bahu of hers is going to be a working woman.

Alarmed at the fate facing her younger sister, Arti’s married sister Abha, played by Nayani Dixit — who, by the way, is a revelation and one hopes will be seen more in Hindi films — urges Arti to run away from the baaraat.

For a girl who is a topper and smart enough to clear one of the toughest exams on Planet Earth at one go, Arti has the personality of a wet rag. She does run away, but only after Didi and Mamaji and Mummy urge her to, and she doesn’t even bother to tell Sattu why, because Didi told her not to call him.

Then comes interval. This is when you should leave.

Because then the story jumps five years and Arti is now an “officer” in Lucknow. But this is Hindi cinema. So the hero — who was last seen as a clerk — is an even bigger officer. And he wants revenge. He also wants sex. Or may be not. Her career depends on him. He tortures her. Also saves her hide. She starts wooing him. He shoos her away.

Then the story jumps some more months. She is engaged to someone else. She kisses Sattu. He comes as a guest to her wedding.

If you are still invested in this story, you and the film deserve each other. Just like Sattu and Arti.

Samhita Chakraborty