Saroj Sharma (Sanah Kapur) is on the heavier side of the weighing scale, but extremely happy with the way she is. She’s confident and self-assured, which attracts the attention of a gym-trainer and photographer Shantanu (Gaurav Pandey). However, Saroj decides to undergo body transformation to appease and marry her childhood love, Vikram (Randeep Rai). Her plans turn awry when Vikram lands up in Ghaziabad, unannounced. Whether Saroj marries Vikram or accepts Shantanu’s love forms the rest of the narrative.
At a conceptual level, ‘Saroj Ka Rishta’ had ample scope for light-hearted moments, plenty of humour and a good number of emotional curves that could have elevated the message the film intended to push out. However, what we end up seeing in the narrative is a series of slow-paced, convenient and unfunny moments, and some twists and turns that are better done by TV serials lately. The screenplay and dialogue could have taken the story several notches higher. Instead, they pull it down through most parts of the runtime, which feels tedious. The film could clearly have done with a better edit.
‘Saroj Ka Rishta’ has a couple of romantic songs, one of which also brings back Sonu Niigam’s voice in a Hindi movie album. The numbers are soothing when you hear them but one would have liked to see them better utilised.
Among the artistes, Kumud Mishra feels completely at ease playing Saroj’s father, who supports her come what may. A little more focus on lending him an arc, and giving him some meaty material to work on would have justified his presence a lot more. Sanah is confident as an artiste and performs well, given the scope of the character she plays. But her part needed some more gravitas for it to hit the right notes. Gaurav Pandey and Randeep Rai’s characters, too, needed to be crafted with some more effort for them to connect with the audience at an emotional level. However, the actors’ effort to elevate the material is evident.
All in all, ‘Saroj Ka Rishta’ could have been a classic Hindi comedy revolving around marriages in the heartland of India, spotlighting how good parenting can make girls confident and self-assured irrespective of their physical appearance. Instead, this one, directed by Abhishek Saxena, feels like a half-hearted effort to create a comedy around a girl who succumbs to thinking about her weight to appeal to a man.
