Baar Baar Dekho

Plot

Jai Verma (Sidharth Malhotra) and Diya Kapoor (Katrina Kaif) are childhood sweethearts. Jai is a maths professor and Diya, an artist. While Jai hopes to get a fellowship at Cambridge University, Diya wishes to get married to her long-term boyfriend. Jai agrees to get married reluctantly but the thought of saat pheras and the billion rituals as well as the fear of weddings ending in divorces make him change his mind. Jai criticizes these meaningless rituals and talks negatively of his marriage. He tells Diya that he has other plans for his bright future and she may not be a part of it. She walks away heartbroken. Jai gets drunk and passes out only to wake up in Thailand on his honeymoon. He discovers that it's been ten days since he got married to Diya. He has no memory of it at all. Next up, he wakes up in Cambridge, only to find his wife about to deliver their child. He discovers that it has been two years since his marriage. He realises he has been time travelling and has no control over it.

Next time he wakes up, he is a professor at Cambridge University, his dream job. It has been eighteen years since his marriage. To his horror, Jai realises that it is the day when he and Diya are divorced. Heartbroken, he returns home and pleads to return to the past to set things right.

Jai wakes up the next day, realizing he is in the past, seven years after his marriage. He juggles many priorities of his family and career. However Jai gives more priority to work and instead of going for Diya's first art exhibition, he goes to his friend Chitra's (Sayani Gupta) place to help her with her breakup. Chitra tries to have an affair with Jai. Believing it to be the cause of his divorce,Jai hastily returns home, but his family is unhappy with him.

Jai is however convinced that he has set things right. The next day, he wakes up to find himself in his 60 year old self. He finds out that his mother had died and everyone gathered for her funeral. After the funeral, Jai is shocked that he and Diya are still divorced and that Diya had married another man who enjoyed the love of Jai's mother (Sarika) and children.

Reeling from this blow, Jai comes across the priest (Rajit Kapoor) who had conducted his marriage, who warns him of the importance of time. Jai is given another opportunity to set things right as he goes back in time to the same day, seven years after his marriage. This time, he sets things right. He spends time with his children, does his work well and makes Dia feel special and attends her art exhibition. At the end of the day, Jai is a happy man.

Jai wakes up back into the present, the day after he left Diya heartbroken. Jai rushes back to her, cherishing every moment along the way. Jai reconciles with Diya and promises to be true to her. The film ends with both getting married and everyone dancing.

Cast

Development

In October 2013, it was announced that Nitya Mehra, assistant director to films Life of Pi and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, would be making her directorial debut with Excel Entertainment on their new project. The film was rumoured to feature Aamir Khan and later Hrithik Roshan in the leading male role and Deepika Padukone in the leading female role. In September 2014, it was officially announced that the film will be co-produced by Karan Johar of Dharma Productions and that Sidharth Malhotra will feature in the film. Later in April 2015, Katrina Kaif was confirmed to feature in the film, opposite Malhotra. Initially titled Kal Jisne Dekha, Baar Baar Dekho reportedly is based on an ageing romance spanning 30 odd years.

Filming

Principal photography began on August 28, 2015, in Glasgow, Scotland, and went for over a month. Filming then continued in Delhi and Mumbai from November 2015 onwards. On February 22, 2016, the team filmed "Sau Aasmaan" in Krabi, Thailand, for a week.

Budget

According to Box Office India, film had a total budget of ₹530 million. But The Indian Express stated that budget was around ₹350 million excluding cost of printing & marketing which are generally not considered in the budget.

Soundtrack

The music is composed by Amaal Mallik, Arko, Badshah, Jasleen Royal and Bilal Saeed. The first song "Kala Chashma" was released on 27 July 2016. The full music album was released on 3 August 2016. The music rights are acquired by Zee Music Company.

Certification issue

In August 2016, the film was granted a U/A certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). However, the examining committee of the board asked the producers to remove two visuals from the film which involved sequences depicting an actor wearing a brassiere and another referencing Savita Bhabhi, a popular Indian pornographic cartoon character.

India

Baar Baar Dekho released alongside Sohail Khan's sports romantic comedy Freaky Ali and collected ₹6.81 crore on its opening day in India beating Freaky Ali's ₹2.55 crore. On second day the film shown growth in its occupancy and collected ₹7.65 crore before its breakdown on third day where it collected ₹6.70 crore and reached to first weekend collection of ₹21.16 crore. The film then started break down as it collected ₹8.34 crorecrore in next four days and with that the film made its first collection of ₹29.50 crore. In second week it collected ₹1.75 crore and then ₹6 lakh, ₹2 lakhs in third and fourth week respectively. The film's net collection was ₹31.24 crore while its grossing in India is ₹43.39 crore.

Overseas

The film shown impressive grossing in overseas by collecting ₹6.54 crore, ₹2.99 crore and ₹2.67 crore from North America(USA & Canada), UK and UAE respectively. The film also collected ₹50 lakh from Pakistan, ₹91 lakh from Australia and ₹28 lakh from New Zealand.

Critical response

Rediff.com gave the film 1 out 5, calling it "catastrophically stupid," and commenting that "a feeble script is built on constant, relentless revelations with artlessly expository dialogues." Subhash K. Jha from NDTV gave the movie 4/5, and mentioned that there "is plenty to celebrate in Baar Baar Dekho, not the least of its virtues being the ability to deliver marital home truths without sermons or soliloquies.". Writing for The Hindu, Namrata Joshi commented that the movie features "passionless performances and cardboard characters" that lack depth. "There are no standout performances, no scenes that can pack in an emotional wallop and the conversational dialogue turns banal beyond a point." The Indian Express gave the movie 1.5 out of 5, noting that "Katrina Kaif’s limited emoting abilities, Sidharth Malhotra’s one-note performance and a banal script" make watching the film once "way more than enough." India Today criticized the performance of the lead actors in the film: "Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif both seem to think they are in the film to make it look good. There's hardly any acting on the part of either. While Katrina's moments of frustration and sorrow invoke the stray laugh from the theatre, Sidharth's neither-here-nor-there Jai hardly makes an impact."