If you are planning to watch Tanu Weds Manu out of an anticipation of it being a time-pass if not an entertainer, let me clarify this - you are wrong.

Rediff reviews it as "charming". Whatever the reviewer was inhaling/ingesting during the movie watch, it should be banned from the multiplexes. Charming is a quaintly sweet adjective for a movie. This movie isn't charming. It is a colossal waste of celluloid, a lesson in how continuity breaks through scenes (Kangna's shoes change in between as does Deepak's wristwatch position for example) and that actors, when they try to painstakingly prove how 'inside their character' they are by attempting to act in-your-face. Kangna Ranaut plays a character that is not neurotic/psychotic/dysfunctional. And fails majestically. A small reason for that is that the set design around her doesn't even add to her character. For example, her room provides a pivotal context and yet there's just shoulder-level camera shots that rely on fuzzy focus and some bric-a-brac shot to build up what ostensibly is a rebel-without-a-cause persona. R Madhavan is equally incredible - as a physician practising in London (with some pharma company building pacemakers) with a well-entrenched sense of 'sanskar' - his lack of display of emotions are more perhaps a result of being unable to emote than deep-seated angst and a sense of all-will-sort-out-at-the-final-reel sense of conviction.

What does redeem the movie is the wonderful set of characters/cameos - K K Raina, Rajendra Gupta, Deepak Dobriyal (with that name like Pappi, who wouldn't expect the character to be the one threading the narrative together ?), Swara Bhaskar and Eijaz Khan. Jimmy Shergill should perhaps look back at the recent string of bloopers that he has selected and mope over the waste of his potential - the role ill suits him and that swagger is so affected that it would do well as a caricature (wait till the last scene for what might be the most laughter inducing dialogue from him !). The story travels to and fro between Delhi, Kanpur and Kapurthala and it is only at the latter location does the tempo attempt to pick up a bit. A disastrous post-intermission script lets it down so thoroughly that by the time it is near the end you desperately want Manu to wed Tanu and be done with it so that you can leave the theater in peace and with some of your sanity intact.