Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai Review: Varun Dhawan’s Film Doesn’t Want Its Audience To Have A Good Time!
Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona is directed by David Dhawan. It's currently in running in theatres. Read our review here.
1 / 5
It felt like forever inside the theatre while I sat there watching Varun Dhawan’s new comedy drama Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai. Directed by David Dhawan, the two female leads are played by Mrunal Thakur and Pooja Hegde. The film also stars, Jimmy Shergill, Maniesh Paul, Chunky Pandey, Mouni Roy, Rajesh Kumar and Rakesh Bedi. It’s quite sad and regressive to categorise this product as a film, because it will only be remembered for its extremely torturous runtime. Read our review if you wish to watch Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.
Plot
Plot? You ask. How do I explain that when the entire time I sat there wondering, why the film was even made in the first place? The film revolves around the lead male character Jass Ahuja, a manchild and a professional wedding photographer who is desperate to get married. The sole purpose of his life it to marry and have a kid because of course, men want to become fathers. He meets Bani (Mrunal Thakur), instantly fall is love with her and the two get married under questionable circumstances.
Cut to, five years later, they are at the court filing for a divorce. Bani is not interested in having a child as she wants to focus on her career as a CEO. Her argument in court he is that Jas loves her “too much”, and has unprotected sex because he wishes to have a child. The court gives them six months to sort the issue, but two months later, Jass has already moved on and is London dating a new girl Preet (Pooja Hegde). The circumstances pan out in such a way that Jass gets both Bani and Preet pregnant, and now his “struggle” to keep them away from each other begins. Jimmy Shergill plays Preet’s elder brother, a Haryanvi goofd kind of figure. Maniesh Paul plays the typical male lead best friend, and Chunky Panday is a doctor.
Writing, Charaters And More!
It’s a badly made film with absolutely no purpose, story, screenplay or good characters to it. The story does not serve as a comedy, drama, chaos, or rom-com. The plot is baseless and does not feel the need to take accountability for itself. Does it romanticise cheating? No, but it normalises how men can easily impress, manipulate and get into romantic relationship with women, because the story of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona assumes that women are dumb. The other aspect that the film uses as “comedy” is how all men are just lusting over women and therefore they should not target each other!
At the same time, the David Dhawan directorial desperately wants to be woke by adding sensible choices by the female characters in the end but that’s just 2 percent of them. Most of time, the film tries the dated fat-shaming, homophobic and consent “jokes” as a source to extract laughs.
The characters are poorly written with little to no focus on the female characters. The male lead Jas, a manchild with no consceince, moral compass or respect for consent. The problematic character is somewhere made to look good or to be fair, convince us that even with a personality like that, Jas can easily have women falling in love with him. Well, it’s hard to believe!
I am still trying to figure how the women, Bani and Preet considered to even have a child with Jas. Of course, no proper justification is given for that. But how do I digest the fact that a CEO who for five years wanted to have good career, is convinced to have a baby within two months following the court verdict. Well, what’s more unbelievable is Preet wanting to have a child with a man she randomly met few days back. Are we not raising the right questions anymore?
All the male characters in the film are showed to be flawed when it comes to their problematic male gaze, and seeing women beyond anything else other than pleasure or baby-churning machine. What is exactly the point here?
Performances
The overly dramatic performances test your patience. Varun Dhawan as Jas is not likeable and too much to tolerate. Mrunal Thakur and Pooja Hegde hardly get to do anything. Jimmy Shergill makes sure to not go overboard with his character like everyone else in the film. Maniesh Paul’s date male best friend character is not funny and so is Chunky Pandey’s doctor.
Dialogues, Songs!
The dialogues are unbearable, and made me feel suffocated everytime Varun Dhawan’s Jas kept blaberring random lines just to hide his truth. The OG songs have been ruined, and the original tracks are not memorable.
Verdict
We are still questioning the relevance, need and purpose of Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai. It’s dated, cringe, problematic and unneccesarily dramatic! Skip this one!
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First Published: June 05, 2026 4:36 PM
