Tera Mera Ki Rishta Review

Touted as Punjabi cinema's most expensive film to date, Tera Mera Ki Rishta tells the story of Meet (Jimmy Shergill) a thrill-seeking Punjabi boy from Canada who travels to the heart of the Punjab to attend a family wedding. It's here that he meets Rajjo (Kulraj Randhawa), a simple but forthright girl who prides herself on her culture and values. Amid the gaiety of the wedding they fall in love, little realising the opposition they will face and the obstacles that lie ahead.

Tera Mera Ki Rishta gives a definite nod to the films of the 1990s - Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - both of which are widely credited with resurrecting the waning fortunes of the Indian film industry and bringing wholesome family entertainment to the forefront of local cinema. But these were stories told over a decade ago and Punjabi cinema is clearly playing catch up.

Tera Mera Ki Rishta applies the same winning formula to a Punjabi setting, with a wedding as the backdrop for an unlikely love story between the non-resident Indian who falls for the feisty but virtuous village belle. In between tilling the fertile Punjabi soil our erstwhile hero must win over a whole community in the face of familial opposition to his love. There's all the revelry of a Punjabi wedding, infectious dance sequences, a tale of burgeoning love and the prerequisite jaunt through the Swiss Alps.

While the story is familiar to say the least, the characters are also formulaic and contrived. Archana Puran Singh plays the harsh mother, wary of would-be daughters-in-law with an eye on her son's inheritance. There's the inevitably caustic and utterly materialistic rival for Meet's affections, and the stern patriarch, unshakeable in his resolve to prevent an alliance that might threaten his family's honour. Meanwhile, Anupam Kher re-enacts his role in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge as the supportive father who crosses an ocean to help his son win love. They are all essentially caricatures of your archetypal Bollywood characters but with the added disadvantage of dialogue which is stilted and at times crude.