The YA book “Asmara’s Summer” by Andaleeb Wajid is adapted for Prime Video.
The most recent young-oriented romantic comedy on Prime Video is based on Andaleeb Wajid’s 2016 YA novel Asmara’s Summer. Dil Dosti Predicament.
The main activities in Asmara’s (Anushka Sen) tone-deaf teenage life include shopping and hanging out with her best friends, Tania and Naina, who live in a posh Bengaluru. The “Awesome Threesome” are privileged, conceited, and have constrained perspectives.
dil When Asmara’s falsehoods cause her summer vacation in Canada to be canceled, she is horrified and everything falls apart. Her punishment is to spend a staycation with her traditional grandparents in Tibri Road, a small, middle-class Bengaluru neighborhood.
Asmara’s mother, played by Shruti Seth, aspires to reconnect her spoilt daughter with her modest origins and sincere familial values. Asmara, though, is adamant about rebelling against her grandparents and their gossipy neighborhood.
While her grandfather Shishir Sharma has a more liberal perspective, her grandma Tanvi Azmi worries about “what will people say.” Asmara pretends to be in Canada because she is worried about maintaining her social standing with her sophisticated pals.
Asmara’s generational divide from her grandparents begins to close, and she also begins to feel more and more affection for the people living on Tibri Road, especially for Rukshana (Vishakha Pandey) and Faraaz (Kush Jotwani), who are her neighbor Suhasini Mulay’s grandchildren. Asmara, the astute and outspoken girl, discovers a new calling and creates both familial and love ties.
The story occasionally switches to Tania (Elisha Mayor) and Naina (Revathi Pillai), who are coping with their own first-world issues, even though the main focus is Asmara’s rite of passage.
The story leaves some loose ends, including those with the youngster Nikhil, the geeky intern Dhruv who dares Tania to wake up and smell the coffee, an adulterous affair, and a danger to Tibri Road’s future.
With occasional sharp one-liners, writers Anuradha Tiwari, Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Raghav Dutt, and Manjiri Pupala adhere to rom-com clichés. A harridan holding a hookah says, “Jab dua kaam nahin aati, tab dhuaan kaam aata hai.” (If praying doesn’t work, smoking helps.)
In her use of neighboring rooftops as the meeting place for a budding romance, secret songs as a code word for covert meetings, and a flimsy narrative for an elopement, director Debbie Rao resorts to cinematic clichés.
Rao brings out the best in her young cast, which includes Sen as the lead and Jotwani, Pillai, and Mayor providing appropriate backing. However, as the too passionate Rukhsana, Vishakha Pandey needs to tone it down.
Despite their disparate heights, Sen and Jotwani form a lovely couple who successfully capture the lighthearted playfulness of a young couple attempting to overcome social and class barriers. In their roles as the archetypal old-school grandparents, Azmi and Sharma are spot on.
After watching seven episodes, one is emotionally immersed in the characters’ small victories, small setbacks, and significant actions. Like Asmara being dragged onto Tibri Road, Dil Dosti Dilemma is a low-key, feel-good entertainer who gently draws you in.
