Good Newzz, What’s So Funny About Desperately Seeking Parenthood?

Good Newzz

Starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Diljit Dosanjh, Kiaran Advani

Directed by Raj Mehta

Rating:**(2 stars)

Good Newzz could have  been our very own Only You,the British drama directed  by Harry Wootliff  about  a young couple desperately trying to have a  baby. Instead  this Karan Johar production reeks of shallowness and a screenplay that  clearly wants us to  believe it has more to  say that  it actually does.

Good Newzz is basically a one-line  joke  stretched into two hours  of  quips and  kicks, the latter happening in the wombs of  the  two female protagonists  after they both get pregnant with the wrong man’s  sperms.That’s the joke on which hinges the tedious  torrent of  tongue-wagging  most  of it  devoted to  showcasing Akshay Kumar’s comic timing, which is no doubt admirable. But then  there is a time and place for everything including  comic timing.

 So tell us, what is funny about  two couples with the surname trying to  have a baby?

 There are endless “jokes” on the  word ‘sperm’  being mispronounced  by  the   goofy  innocent  Honey(Diljit Dosanjh) as  ‘spam’. Honey and his  loud  god-fearing wife Monika(Kiara Advani) serve as contrasts to  Varun  and Deepti  Batra  , the urbane sophisticated  couple who  look down pn the loud couple  from Chandigarh.Akshay  Kumar sneers at his   coarse  neighbours  the way  Karan  Johar would  do if Rakhi Sawant were  to move in  nextdoor.

I would  go as far as  to say Akshay Kumar plays Karan  Johar, IVF baby and  all.  Class  differences between the two couples is  dealt with all the subtlety  of  a seer sneering at  a non-believer.

There is  this extended sequence where  Honey and Monika come  visiting while   Varun is high on  weed. He giggles each time Monika mispronounces an English  word.He is clearly having fun.We are  not.The episode is supposed  to have  us  rolling on the (polished)  floor  with glee.All it does is to show  the Akshay character  as a terribly behaved arrogant human being who deserves a punch in the face.

I don’t  think the film  intended that. Throughout  Good Newzz is  a saga of  misfired intentions. By the time  the  coarse Monika  and the  la-di-dah  Deepti  end up sharing gol-guppas  on the street, the  screenplay(Jyoti Kapoor, Rishab Sharma) has forgotten what  it wants to say or where  it wants  to  go.

The first-half has some smile-inducing moments , thanks  mainly to Akshay’s  smart one-liners. But the second-half is an unmitigated  mess,  with the two couples going all teary-eyed over  newly-born babies.

The  film has  a  polished look about it. But the gleam cannot hide its hollowness.  The performances are  suitably high-pitched  with every actor trying to  get into the  skittish mood  of farcical  fertilization. Kareena Kapoor Khan looks stunningly beautiful. But most of her acting is done by her feet. I’ve never seen her  showing her  feet before, and that too  in several ways including a  yoga posture after  sexual intercourse which Akshay rightly finds annoying.

There is plenty in this film that is plainly annoying. By the time the two couples go  home with their babies we just want them to get it over with.Seriously, there must be  better ways of conception and  pregnancy. How about adoption?