Jia Aur Jia Movie Review: This Trip Ends Up As A Bumpy Ride Rather Than An Eye-Opener!

Item: Jia Aur Jia
Rating: 1.5
Author: Madhuri

Is this Richa Chadha- Kalki Koechlin starrer worth the hype? We watched it and here's our verdict.

By Madhuri

Updated: Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 9:31 [IST]

Plot

Jia Venkatram (Richa Chadha) and Jia Garewal (Kalki Koechlin) are supposed to be tour partners in Sweden. The two women have nothing in common except for their name.

While Kalki's Jia is a happy-go-lucky, exuberant girl, Richa's Jia on the other hand is calm and composed. The plot revolves around how these diametrically opposite personalities set out on a life-changing journey, each hiding a devastating secret from the other all the while.

Direction

Road trip films are meant to make you feel bad about your mundane existense. Unfortunately, Jia Aur Aur fails to feature in that category! Throughout the film, you just want to reach out to the director and tell him that road trip films ain't only about riding trailers, sharing ciggies or befriending a stranger at the middle of a night on a lonely road.

Jia Aur Jia is supposed to break stereotypes but instead, it only reinstalls them. So, a overly-happy girl has to suffer from a terminal illness to make her 'somber' gal pal understand the importance of living life to the fullest. Duh!

You never connect with any of the characters in the first place to make you feel sorry when tragedy strikes in later. A superficial 'we are now besties' followed by a bizarre love angle where a random stranger make one of the ladies have hots for him by mouthing lines like "Main ameer hoon, main kuch nahi karta."...Howard Rosemeyer's sloppy execution and Mudassir Aziz's flimsy writing make the film a forgetable fest.

Performances

Kalki Koechlin is the only saving grace of the film who tries her level best to infuse some life in this otherwise drab fare. On the other hand, your heart bleeds on seeing Richa Chadha sulk and struggle when it comes to enacting her scenes. Arslan Goni needs to work on his acting histronics.

Technical Aspects

Technically too, Jia and Jia has nothing substantial to boost about. A beautiful location like Sweden is reduced to a couple of basic shots and an ample of stock footages. The editing is decent.