With Luka Chuppi and Pati Patni Aur Woh, has Kartik Aaryan found a new way to entertain his fans?

Actor Kartik Aaryan may just be half a dozen, very similar movies old but he has already found himself a fan following that many stars would envy. Even with his small crop of movies that many have would call mildly misogynistic, Kartik has successfully made his way into mainstream.

The young actor from Gwalior rose to fame with his portrayal of the girlfriend-peedit man in Pyaar Ka Punchnama in 2011. His monologue from the film, in which he vented his frustration at getting played by his girlfriend at every turn, found an audience in many similarly self-victimising men. How the women came to love it as well, is still a mystery. Perhaps his boyish charm and spiked hair had a role to play.

Suddenly, his monologue was plastered all over our Facebook walls and was forwarded relentlessly on WhatsApp groups of college students. While the movie also had five other actors, it was only Kartik who everyone wanted to see again. Director Luv Ranjan really did set him up solid with that monologue. Watch it here:

After Pyaar Ka Punchnama, Kartik worked again with Luv Ranjan and his co-star from his first film, Nushrat Bharucha in Akaash Vani (2013). Kartik and Nushrat played college students in the film who fall in love and then fall apart. The film received good reviews with one film critic writing, “The world of AkaashVani is far removed from the bantering bawdy backchat of Pyaar Ka Punchnama. But that is the beauty of the second film.”

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Kartik then bagged a small role in Subhash Ghai’s film Kaanchi: The Unbreakable in 2014. The film got bad reviews and was considered nowhere close to Ghai’s other, previous works.

The actor paired up with Luv for a third time with Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 in 2015. The film was carbon copy of the first in its theme. Three men go out looking for love and somehow land on the most manipulative, horrible women possible. In her review, Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times wrote, “The sequel is even more hilarious than the previous one - so much so that you are most likely to ignore the ‘anti-women’ part of it altogether.”

Kartik then picked up Guest iin London in 2017 with Paresh Rawal. The film got bad reviews with many finding it to be a lame attempt at recreating Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?. Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times wrote, “It’s so lame that you would find the tobacco ads more entertaining than watching Paresh Rawal farting for at least hundred times.”

However, the big bumper ticket to the big league came with Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, Kartik’s fourth collaboration with Luv. The film, released in 2018, made Rs 150 crore and was one of the biggest hits of the year. Sure, Kartik played a similar, woman-fearing/hating role in this one too. Hindustan Times review said, “Right from Sonu asking Titu to get a better cook or maid instead of getting married to Sweety to threatening her with false cases, the script and dialogues reek of misogyny that even the two Pyaar Ka Punchnama films couldn’t bring together.”

However, Kartik finally seems to have realised that misogyny is perhaps not the only way to entertain people. He will soon be seen in Luka Chuppi with Kriti Sanon. In it, he plays a young man looking to get married while the woman of his dreams wishes to try a live-in relationship before she takes the plunge.

After Luka Chuppi, Kartik will be seen in another romantic comedy, Pati Patni Aur Woh with Bhumi Pednekar and Ananya Panday. Has it begun to feel like Kartik is only ever choosing the frothy romances even after entering the mainstream? He believes so too. However, he knows there is still time before he tries a few more serious films.

“I really want to do something dark and edgier. I love doing comedies and rom-coms but grey characters attract me a lot. Recently, there was a script which had come to me and it had a dark character and I was blindly going to do it but later, I realised that I should wait a little more,” he told IANS.

Kartik recently made his debut on Koffee With Karan and when host Karan Johar asked him the one role he could have done better, he said “Andhadhun”, which starred Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead. The role earned the actor a lot of appreciation from critics and audiences alike. However, even Kartik later said that he was fooling himself by saying he could have done it better.

“I feel comedy is the most difficult thing to do. I feel happy when people enjoy my work. I like thrillers and the anti-hero zone. I love watching them. I would like to do something in this, other than comedy. I enjoyed Andhadhun. I am offered a lot of comedy films. I want to do serious films now,” Kartik told PTI.

Currently, Kartik has three more films in his kitty. Maybe one of them will give him an opportunity to experiment some more with the kind of films he wants to do and something that his fans would also be eager to watch.

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