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After a series of well- written scripts, it is the film that will test the star power of Kangana.

Katti Batti could have been an important film. Designed to exploit Kangana Ranaut’s rebellious image, it is a film which examines the perks of a live-in relationship. It is also a film which tries to put a girl in control of the relationship. In a role reversal of sorts, she wants the relationship to be a time pass when the boy is looking for eternal love. When he talks of values, the lissom lass doesn’t want to be a lesson in moral science. Here the boy uses phrases like main ghabra gaya tha while the girl has the acumen to hide her pain so that her man doesn't suffer.

Unfortunately, director Nikhil Advani fails to package; the word they use for kneading narratives these days, his intentions for the second week in a row. If Hero was close to zero, it does marginally better because of the covalence between the lead players.

There is an emotional core somewhere but the director has covered it with layers of gloss to please the market forces, which seems to suggest that every emotion has to be packed in a comic pill. Every frame has to be eye-catching, matters of heart can wait. So you can gather lot of trend in hairdos and interior design but when it comes to the architecture of human emotions, the writing disappoints.

Advani is like that sub-editor who is more interested in writing headlines and doesn’t care to back them with substance. Perhaps, that is why the promos evoke more interest than the real thing as somebody has put all the best lines and situations in the three- minute teasers. He hopes editing gimmicks will do the trick for him but as the narrative goes back and forth in time it only adds to the confusion and exposes the hollowness of the whole idea. 

 A middle class young architect Maddy (Imran) is smitten by Payal (Kangana) who is keen to have just a casual relationship. She obviously comes from an elite fractured family. She moves into his house but after five years of bonding one day she leaves him. As Maddy goes looking for answers, he faces questions from within and without. Many of their actions look crazy but then Advani wants us to believe that this generation is like that. A little childish, a little crazy. This explains the title. Perhaps that’s why we have a song called “Main Sirphara, Tu Sirphiri” (I am crazy, you are crazy) in the film.

But then when a film that is being positioned as a rebel among the tribe of rom coms, only pushes stereotypes and tries to manipulate tear ducts towards the end for a few ounces of sympathy, it irks. A caricature of South Indian boss, a society of frustrated lovers, a turtle as a pet, the script is replete with situations which have ceased to be funny for many years now. The saving grace is that the turtle is called Milkha.

After a series of well- written scripts, it is the film that will test the star power of Kangana. Can she pull off a weak script solely on the basis of her performance? She has this amazing quality of making us laugh and cry at will and as Payal she explores her wild side to the hilt. But then she is expected to conform because she is the hero now and the hero always has a back story to justify the transgressions. The idea lies in the introductory scene where Maddy asks her name and Payal shows her ankle which has a tattoo of lightening and an anklet. Like us, Maddy also thinks she must be Bijli but Kangana wants to be a more generic Payal now. The idea of a please-all heroine at the helm is not bad but Katti Batti is not that film to give it a shot. Imran Khan is a good support. He plays second fiddle to Kangana with remarkable sincerity. Your heart goes out for him when he questions his value in the scheme of things and laments being used as a puppet.

The feeling is mutual. As after two hours of cuddling and canoodling, when the big reveal happens it is not only manipulative but also amounts to a cop out.