With a tagline of ‘Love on Air’, one would have expected Radio to have a romance that developed on air and that materialised off air. Sadly, director Ishan Trivedi didn’t think along similar lines, and what ensued was a simple love triangle, which ended up as anything but that. Had Trivedi stuck to the concept of a love triangle, his film would have emerged as a winner.
But he didn’t, and it definitely didn’t.
Radio is about a successful RJ Vivaan (Himesh Reshammiya), who (barely) doles out love advice to his listeners, while his own love life is in a mess – he’s getting divorced from his lovely wife Pooja (Sonal Sehgal). Enter Shanaya (Shenaz Tresurywala), a half-Punjabi half-Parsi fun-loving whacko, bubbling with vivacity, who breathes air into Vivaan’s life and falls in love with him in the process. How the love triangle plays out is what fills up the rest of the movie.
The main problem with Radio is its script and its lame dialogues. And of course, Himesh’s acting. But, first things first. The audience can not relate to the flimsy grounds of “incompatibility” for the divorce, and how easily the couple is granted the divorce despite Vivaan’s objection to it. Secondly, Pooja’s jealousy and insecurity is understandable whenever Shanaya is in the picture, with Vivaan in tow, but these two ladies’ budding friendship in the end wasn’t clearly established, which is what made it extremely un-relatable. Second, Vivaan’s inability to grasp things right in front of his face kind of got on my nerves. A lot.
I mean, how can you not see that your ex is humiliating your friend at a party? Or that your ex still has feelings for you, as does your friend? Plus, Shanaya’s sacrifice of her love for Vivaan’s sake was too Bollywood for my taste. I mean, come on, being a girl of the 21st century, she could have at least confessed to Vivaan about her feelings for him and then let him decide whom he wanted in his life – his nagging, egotistical and completely unpredictable wife, or his newest BFF, one who completely changed his perspective of life and encouraged him to tap his yet untapped talent?
The premise of a radio station is simply a tool to take the story (and I use this term loosely) forward. Take it out of the plot, and it would have made no difference whatsoever to the plot. Oh yes, Paresh Rawal’s cameo was totally wasted due to the incredibly lame dialogues given to the veteran.
Coming down to acting, well, Himmesh lacks the intensity and the passion to become anything but a comedian (believe you me, he actually has a pretty decent comic timing). His eyes seem to be staring into blank space, unable to emote any expression…. although, to give him due credit, he’s definitely matured as an actor. Sehgal was decent enough, even though there were scenes, which revealed her incapability at anything dramatic. Shenaz was the only breath of fresh air in the movie in terms of acting…. she brought life into her character – she played the lively, optimistic, slightly mad and completely fun-loving girl with
