Do Deewane Seher Mein (2026) is directed by Ravi Udyawar.
The film features Siddhant Chaturvedi, Mrunal Thakur, Viraj Ghelani, Ila Arun, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Sandeepa Dhar, Mona Ambegaonkar, Joy Sengupta, Deepraj Rana and Achint Kaur.
The film deals with two individuals in Mumbai whose families want them to marry. It explores how their insecurities and conflicts come to surface through their bond.
What are love stories if they don’t feature two misfits who eventually, hopelessly, fall in love with one another? Take I Hate Luv Storys (2010) for example, where Simran (Sonam Kapoor) and Jay (Imran Khan) are part of a film crew in Mumbai—the city of love and Bollywood. Their conflicting ideologies about relationships become the catalyst of their becoming against the backdrop of the city. Same goes for Wake Up Sid (2009), wherein Sid (Ranbir Kapoor) and Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma) attempt to find their footing in the demanding metropolis, roaming around Marine Drive and decorating their Bandra apartment. In both of these films, the city becomes the co-conspirator of love, selfhood and artistic passion.
With Do Deewane Seher Mein (2026), directed by Ravi Udyawar, one sees the same ethos. The city becomes so much more than a backdrop—it becomes witness to the vulnerable act of falling in love. Shashank (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Roshni (Mrunal Thakur) are polar opposites: one romanticises the Mumbai rains and the other calls it a sweat-fest; one admires elaborate cooking and the other one despises it as a whole.
Loosely alluding to the old Gharaonda (1977) song “Do Deewane Sheher Mein”, the film frames them in quest of both—self acceptance and finding romantic love. One might initially suspect a misspelling when the film, which gestures toward the word ‘sheher’, is titled ‘seher’. The narrative, however, addresses this detail early on. The protagonist, Shashank, has a speech impairment that prevents him from pronouncing sibilant sounds (like ‘sh’), which explains the altered spelling. ‘Seher’ also means dawn—suggesting an awakening of the self through love.
Roshni and Shashank are flawed individuals in their own eyes—dealing with childhood insecurities grouped with the anxious fears of modern dating. Roshni feels unworthy and ugly, hiding behind her thick glasses, constantly comparing herself to her elder sister Naina (Sandeepa Dhar). Meanwhile, Shashank avoids work conversations and other social interactions in order to not feel embarrassed. What the film restores is a focus on young love that exists beyond the linguistics of hookup culture. Granted, an arranged marriage setup is hardly something to romanticise—yet the film roots it in two individuals with strong, unyielding ideas about partnership, who initially reject each other because of their differences. Their conflicts are compelling, gradually unearthing buried traumas that lend their emotional worlds a sense of complexity.
When Roshini’s mother (Ayesha Raza) says, “Iss desh mein karne ke liye hi karte hain log shaadi,” she denies it completely, not willing to compromise over non-negotiables. Roshni has, in many ways, withdrawn from the idea of love after the heartbreak of a previous relationship. She dismisses the steady stream of suitors her mother lines up as her insecurities deepen over time. Actors such as Joy Sengupta, Mona Ambegaonkar and Ila Arun gather around dining tables delivering familiar garbage about marriage, suitability and obligation. The writing, however, undermines their acting prowess reducing them to stereotypes, as opposed to the very well thought-out protagonists.
When she meets Shashank, whose affection arrives unguarded and immediate, she regards him with scepticism. His earnestness is disarming, though insufficient. She demands proof that love can exist outside the architecture of expectation. Just as the old-school Bollywood romance genre found a new life in younger protagonists and the contemporary Gen Z with Saiyaara (2025), Do Deewane Seher Mein too brings a refreshing tale of love and becoming.
The film resists reinvention. Instead, it argues for sincerity. Set within the unsettled rhythms of Mumbai, the film manages to observe lives untouched by the performative anxieties and lens of social media culture. Its world feels private, almost insulated. Abhiruchi Chand’s writing avoids dramatic excess, though it retains emotional clarity. Her characters carry insecurities shaped by formative humiliations and inherited prejudices—wounds that appear inconsequential until examined closely.
Thakur and Chaturvedi inhabit these emotional interiors with sensitivity. They understand hesitation, the embarrassment of hope and the instinct to retreat before disappointment arrives. The screenplay moves deliberately slow in the first half and it’s a delight to watch, although it gets repetitive during the second half. There are pockets of moments within the film that could use more humour, although it comes across as a missed opportunity or a deliberate directorial approach. For viewers conditioned by the heightened emotional grammar of mainstream Hindi cinema, this restraint may feel uneventful. Those willing to adjust to its tempo will recognise its fidelity to lived experience.
There is no melodrama here. The film operates within a contemporary emotional grammar: silent quarrels, strategic disappearances, moments that are felt more than declared. In an age defined by perpetual online visibility, it observes how intimacy continues to resist articulation. Communication has become both omnipresent and fragile—its failure the quiet centre of modern relationships. Their romance refuses spectacle. There are no chiffon saris against alpine backdrops. Love, then, becomes an act of recognition as much as encounter. We are drawn not only to another person, but to the imagined self their presence seems to restore.
Udyawar occasionally yields to convention: artificial beauty standards, a mother whose imagination ends at marriage, a father incapable of concealing disappointment appear as recognisable types. These figures, despite being inhabited by talented actors, feel underexplored. Sachin Jigar’s music feels refreshing and harmonious with the film as well. However, the screenplay loosens its hold at crucial junctures and the film begins to feel overextended. Conflicts surface with promise, yet dissolve with undue ease. At the very moment the narrative appears ready to excavate something messier and more revealing, it chooses caution. The visible censorship cuts disrupt the viewing experience as well. Amid the sincerity of their chemistry, an excess of cliché burdens the plot and weakens its narrative clarity. Overall, Thakur and Chaturvedi’s chemistry unfolds in glances and pauses. The silences gather weight, often carrying more charge than the spoken word. Even when the writing slackens, their performances sustain the viewer’s investment.
