Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s film Badhaai Do is a comedy-drama written by Suman Adhikary and Akshat Ghildial. The film stars Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in the lead roles. Apart from Bhumi and Rajkummar, the film stars Seema Pahwa, Sheeba Chadha, Lovleen Mishra, Nitish Pandey, Shashi Bhushan amongst others in pivotal roles taking the narrative ahead.
The film retains the number one spot on Netflix after its OTT release. It brings us across the concept of ‘Lavender Marriage’.
Lavender marriage is the popular term used to describe a male-female marriage in which one or both of the partners were homosexual–or possibly bisexual. The more general term is mixed-orientation marriage.
Badhaai Do is a complete family entertainer which aims to smash all the taboos related to LGBTQ and is an eye-opener for society. In the film, Suman (Bhumi Pednekar) and Shardul (Rajkummar Rao) decide to live like roommates to deal with family pressure and to hide their sexual preferences.
Rajkummar as Shardul is extremely impressive. His dialogue that I am a ‘homo-cop’ is a whistle-blower. Bhumi has created a niche for her roles in the movies. Expressing herself as a lesbian is noteworthy in the movie.
Overall, this film appears to be just another take on LGBTQ+ issues, this time adding the adoption angle to the otherwise commonplace matter of coming out of the closet and making your families understand. Mounted with moderate production values the film tends to get tedious at times.