Join Us
Star Cast: Arushi Bajaj, Bianca Arora, Ansh Duggal, Piyush Khati, Anurag Basu, and others
Director: Sreeti Mukerji
What’s Good: The fresh starcast
What’s Bad: The generic and predictable plot
Loo Break: Anytime you want!
Watch or Not?: Only if you are ready to transport to the 90s and early 2000s!
Language: Hindi
Available On: Prime Video
Runtime: 2 hours and 28 minutes
User Rating:
Remember the 90s when college romance and teenage dramas were a thing! While millennials were fond of shows like Remix and Miley Jab Hum Tum, they later switched to High School Musical and Lizzie McGuire as Disney arrived and ruled the space for quite some time! It was a generation that believed Pyaar Dosti Hai, that believed Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and much later rooted for Abhay Deol and Sonam Kapoor in Aisha! However, over time, teenage romance and musical rom-coms lost their panache! In such an age where kids grow up watching Stranger Things, Alia Bhatt & Shaheen Bhatt bring another college rom-com – Don’t Be Shy!
Honestly, if I were a teenager and this film had arrived in the millennial era, I could vouch that people would have bought it! Just like they loved Ruslaan Mumtaaz in MP3! Or Shahid Kapoor in Ishq Vishk! But, we are dealing with a generation that has grown up with smartphones, and telling them stories about rich boy-poor girl with a sprinkle of ambition does not really land, to be honest!
Still, Sreeti Mukerjee tries to build a world that is cool, peppy, energetic, ambitious, fast-paced, and everything that is loved by Gen-Alpha! But will they buy this world and fall for the college romance that is being sold here? I really have my doubts, and pretty big ones!
Don’t Be Shy Movie Review: Script Analysis
To begin with, Don’t Be Shy is a story about Shyamili Das, a fiercely organized young woman who has her entire future planned! She wants an internship at her boyfriend Mayank’s company – The Jhunhunwalas. She wants to pursue an MBA from IIM, get married to Mayank at 25, and become the CEO of that company, have two kids by 30, and live a happy life! The only thing is, to achieve her dreams, she builds a fake identity in her peppy and happening college – she belongs to a super-rich family from Dubai!
However, life gets messy and chaotic when all of her plans get stuck after her super-rich boyfriend breaks up with her! While her middle-class parents want to teach her about love, relationships, and commitments, Shy is ardently following a plan to win her boyfriend back from his new girlfriend, Tara! She even uses her childhood friend Dhruv to make Mayank jealous! Does she get what she wants? At what cost? Does she lose relationships due to her arrogance and self-centered attitude? Does she realize her mistakes? How does she own up to all those she hurts? All of this forms the premise of this musical rom-com!
Don’t Be Shy Movie Review: Star Performance
The newcomers have a genuine energy in the film. Aarushi Bajaj, in the lead, does the difficult work of making Shy’s arc work in parts – from the control freak who has it all planned to the lost girl who does not know a thing about how to make things work in life! Her presence feels like a real journey rather than a plot requirement. Piyush Khati and Ansh Duggal give the central love triangle some actual chemistry, and Bianca Arora finds a genuine sparkle in Tara, a character who could easily have been a one-note away from being the other mean girl.
The supporting cast, including Anurag Basu and Anju Alva Naik as Shy’s parents, brings a warmth that steadies the film whenever the teen drama goes into a confusing loop. Kunaal Roy Kapur, as the college counselor, gets a handful of genuine beats, though he’s been used very vaguely to put an intense impact! Neha Dhupia appears with a twist, but she never gets utilized properly!
Trending
Don’t Be Shy Movie Review: Direction, Music
It’s Alia Bhatt and Shaheen Bhatt’s first major swing as producers under Eternal Sunshine Productions, and the film shows all they have learnt till date – polished visuals, a glossy soundtrack, a director who builds a world with passion. However, director Sreeti Mukerji strongly echoes the Never Have I Ever territory in her world. Meanwhile, the film is also a typical Aisha meets The Archies – it wants the privileged-world glamour of one and the youthful ensemble energy of the other, without fully committing to either’s better instincts.
Sreeti Mukerji frames Don’t Be Shy as a nostalgic tribute to the comfortable, glossy coming-of-age films we grew up watching. However, the screenplay written by Mukerji and Sehaj Kaur Maini plays like a blend of Aisha, Student of The Year, and Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies, and a lot of Never Have I Ever!
While this aesthetic was popular in earlier decades, modern youth audiences and Gen-Alpha demand authenticity, nuanced writing, and grounded dilemmas. Instead, the film serves up repetitive character motivations, too many manufactured conflicts, and an utterly predictable plot. The college setup never feels like an actual campus, making the entire exercise artificial and distant.
No matter how many things the film goes wrong with, it still does not sound or look cringe or cheap! That is where Sreeti Mukerji wins big time! She might have brought a dated story served in modern dishes. The soundtrack complements the youthful energy well, and the visual gloss at least makes for pleasant viewing, even when the writing isn’t earning it anywhere!
Don’t Be Shy Movie Review: The Last Word
The biggest problem with Don’t Be Shy is it considers it audience as too immature and shallow! And honestly, it is embarrassing, because the Gen-Alpha is way too smart to fall for something as shallow and artificial as this story! The film is aiming for a generation of audience that rules the internet, but it is using a rulebook that hasn’t been updated since Aisha and Student of the Year. The rich or wannabe kid navigates class, romance, and identity crisis formula worked well at some point but today’s teenage viewers have already seen every version of this till the latest global hit – Never Have I Ever, obviously executed with sharper writing!
The film’s biggest miscalculation is its tone – it wants the emotional stakes of a coming-of-age drama but frequently reaches for the depth of the characters rather than only talking about social status. The class-difference thread the trailer promised as a point of depth mostly gets used as a source of drama rather than genuine social commentary. Gen Alpha has grown up on sharper, more self-aware coming-of-age stories; this one asks them to settle for nostalgia they never had in the first place.
All in all, a dated effort that might have worked with the millennials a decade and a half ago, but Gen Alpha needs a much better story!
2 stars.
Don’t Be Shy Trailer
For more Bollywood movie reviews, stay tuned to Koimoi.
Follow Us: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Google News
