Girlfriend Chor (MX Player) Makes  You Smile

Girlfriend Chor(MX Player, 5 Episodes)

Starring Sishir Mishra, Sonali Sachdev, Mayur More, Diksha  Juneja

Rating:*** 1/2 (three and a half stars)

When it’s not  busy  being over-cute  this  5-episode  series  about a  young  lovelorn  but loveless  chap finding his  romantic bearings with  some help from his  ‘cool’ Dad, is  reasonably enjoyable, provided  you aren’t looking for any  depth or dimensions in your  confined entertainment.

 It also helps that there are  some  competent actors playing  the  senior roles. The underrated Sishir Mishra  who is always a pleasure to watch here plays the  ‘cool’ Dad  without trying to  act  cool. There is a pleasant naturalness , a healthy curiosity,   to  the patriarch’s concern about his son’s love life .Why does the  boy Akaash always fall for a  girl whose attention are elsewhere? Does he  suffer from the Devdas  syndrome?

 No one actually mentions Devdas. This  is  not the  place  for  any literary  allusions.

 In  one  of  the early  episodes Dad and Mom(Sonali Sachdev) attend a youngsters’ party to try and hook up their son. It’s a hilarious situation freed  of the generation-related exaggerations that  could  have ruined the balance  of  the  sequence.

This party sequence is my favourite moment in a series that  contains  an abundance  of awkward courtship , not all of it   has to do with the demands of the scenes. Some of  the more gauche moments between Akaash(MayurMore)  and Ritu(Diksha Juneja) have to with the inexperience  of the actors rather than the characters  they play.

The plot  spreads itself out into a bearable  5 episodes, at the end  of which  Akaash has gravitated away  from the girl who has  walked away with a more trendy(and wealthy) dude close to the girl nextdoor who wears spectacles just in case you miss the point of her wholesomeness.

Nice Jughead, Betty, Veronica , Reggie kind of quadrangle  here. And  it’s  nice to see the rich spoilt boy not being demonized.Do  stick around  till the last  episode  where there is  an unexpected surprise in the  form of Ashish Vidyarthi  with whom Akaash’s Mom and Dad have some unfinished business.

The writing is light to the touch and  the direction is airy, bouncy. But a second season? There  is a hint of it at the end of  the first season.Thanks, but no thanks.