This Thai romantic comedy film, aka ลุ้นรักป่วน ก๊วนแฟนเก่า, stars Bella Ranee Campen as Risa, Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree as Tim, Mahir Pandhi as Arun, Anahita Bhooshan as Monica, Fern-Passakorn Ponlaboon as Jan, Pingpong-Thongchai Thongkanthom as Aoffy and others. The film has a runtime of 98 minutes and is directed by Prueksa Amaruji, with the screenplay written by Amaruji and Vikram Yashpal Malhotra.
Plot
Risa, who runs an event-planning business with her friends, finds herself bankrupt and desperate. Thus, when her ex Arun shows up and hires her as his wedding planner, she doesn’t have an option but to accept. To further complicate an already awkward situation, Risa also hires her other ex Tim to be the wedding photographer, resulting in a very awkward and chaotic situation for all.
– The Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Congrats My Ex Review
This Thai rom-com is a weird combination of Bollywood movies and Korean dramas, and that’s dangerous if you want to preserve your sanity. Unfortunately, it has all the glitz and glam of an Indian wedding film and the cuteness of Korean dramas times 100 but has very few laughs along the way. For a movie where every scene is littered with over-exaggerated acting and situations, it tends to get on your nerves after the first few scenes and never really gets any better.
For those who love watching bright moments without much depth, this movie will prove to be a fun and forgettable watch. But apart from that, Congrats My Ex is nothing more than exactly that – fun and forgettable. Its cliched storyline has nothing going for it, and the very pretty people can’t do much but look good and just a tad bit uncomfortable in every scene. There’s also a “tharki” uncle who eavesdrops on other people having sex and makes odd noises. The secondary characters have no depth, and it wouldn’t matter if they were in the movie or not, so the scenes wherein these side characters have odd conversations about nothing really stretch out the runtime for no reason.
And, honestly, that’s saying something because, at 98 minutes, this Thai rom-com isn’t too long. However, it has so little meat on the bones that every other scene is an unnecessary addition to bringing it to feature length. The dialogues have very little going for them and don’t bring forth any emotion in this awkward situation that Risa is in. You don’t feel Risa, Arun or Tim’s complicated feelings, but thankfully the Thai actors do somewhat of a good job emoting some of those emotions.
There’s a moment towards the end of the movie wherein Arun’s father has a medical emergency, and the way the film goes from panic to claps and cheers is almost hilarious. It’s a thing with this movie wherein they come up with emergency situations, and after a minute, everything is sorted, and it’s time to dance and fall into our ex’s arms again. The convenient way in which they get over the different issues is almost insulting and oddly hilarious in a bad way.
Towards the end, there is a “classic” chase scene and a few confessions that are both extremely odd and thoroughly weird and annoying. These moments are supposed to be a mix of emotions and fun, but you don’t feel the emotions you are expected to feel in a situation which is supposed to be extremely charged because, throughout the runtime, we are not given anything to latch on to the characters in any way. The fun and odd situations don’t add to the audience feeling anything for the characters in emotional moments and will leave you annoyed that the silliness is taking too long to get to its point.
Bella Ranee Campen as Risa is quite fun in the midst of this Indian wedding and actually looks great in every scene. She’s also pretty acceptable in the emotional moments with Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree as Tim, who looks cute as a button… although I am not too sure he feels entirely comfortable doing the “thumkas” during Sangeet! That being said, Mahir Pandhi and Anahita Bhooshan look very awkward throughout, and I am not sure whether Pandhi’s “puppy dog” expressions work in the context ofˀ every scene.
In the end, Congrats My Ex recreates a classic scene that most desi people have grown up watching in movies. It oddly both works and doesn’t in this film and is quite humorous, but I guess if you watched it in just another Bollywood film, you’d be rolling your eyes. Unfortunately, again, the emotional quotient is all but missing. That being said, the production seemed like a fun time for all involved, and the bloopers at the end are quite funny to watch; the cinematography and pretty costumes make everything look beautiful, so there’s that.
Final Thoughts
Congrats My Ex is a fun time without any of the headaches of following a feature film emotionally. There’s not one moment when you will feel burdened with following the characters throughout heavy moments but all the fun of watching a bright and glitzy film complete with a Sangeet song and some over-the-top acting. All in all, if you’re in the mood for something light-hearted to run in the background while you are doing something important, this is going to be a fun watch. There’s little else going on otherwise.
The film is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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