Even after sitting through 132 minutes of it, I have no idea why Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is called, well, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke. Nothing about the film is hatke, so let’s get that out of the way first. The title, of course, comes from the evergreen Mohammed Rafi-Geeta Dutt number Yeh hi Bombay meri jaan. Bombay, or now Mumbai, is a city perpetually facing a housing crisis, which, in a roundabout way perhaps, ties the title of this film to its idea.

Except that Zara Hatke Zara Bachke takes place in cramped and crowded Indore, which gives its makers enough space (pun intended) to cram in every small-town, middle-class cliche in the book. The film stars Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan as a young married couple facing a lack of privacy in their joint family. The advent of unwanted relatives shifts the two permanently from their bedroom to the floor of the living room, compelling them to dream about buying their own home.

But that’s easier said than done, with Kapil (Vicky) working as a yoga instructor and Somya (Sara) doing duties as a teacher. Till they chance upon what every Indian middle-class person is forced to resort to at some point — jugaad, with a generous sprinkling of jhooth. Kapil and Somya learn that the only way they can live together under one roof is to opt for a divorce — albeit on paper — so that they can avail the housing benefit of a government scheme, which comes with a lot of fine print. But again, that’s easier said than done, and the couple finds themselves (and the film) facing umpteen speed-bumps in their quest for ‘yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar’.

The premise of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is Love Per Square Foot redux, and in fact, reversed. The 2018 film, which also starred Vicky, had two people faking a marriage in order to buy a home. In his debut film Luka Chuppi, Laxman Utekar, the director of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, had also explored the idea of two people living together who have to pretend to be married to please their respective families. All of these films seem to be operating in the same universe, with very little scope for anything that’s fresh.

In fact, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke operates in such familiar territory that you half expect Sheeba Chaddha or Manoj Pahwa — the mainstays of Bollywood’s mid-budget slice-of-life film — to pop up anytime. The concept and construct of this film have been seen too many times on our screens before, with film-makers of this generation attempting to repackage the Basu Chatterjee-Hrishikesh Mukherjee brand of cinema, but coming up woefully short.

Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is definitely not unwatchable, but there is nothing here that will interest you beyond a point. The songs have a heard-before feel and every scene feels like it could be taken out and fitted into another — and perhaps better — film. The last 20 minutes degenerate into the kind of generic melodrama that Hindi cinema resorts to when it has nothing else to offer. The comedy is also far too physical, underlined by a manipulative background score that grates from the get-go.

To be fair, Vicky and Sara manage to conjure some cute chemistry. Vicky, as expected, is rock-solid, slipping easily into the part of a small-town cheapskate whose heart is in the right place. Sara does the boisterous bit well, but when it comes to cranking up the drama, her acting veers dangerously into Love Aaj Kal territory.

Zara Hatke Zara Bachke is the kind of film that can be safely filed away as a one-time watch. It starts off with promise, but as we have seen many, many times before, it fizzles out way before one can finish saying ‘Thums Up’ (watch the film to know why).

My favourite Hindi film set in a small town is.... Tell t2@abp.in