Never Going to Happen: Wedding Season Review

Wedding Season is a 2022 Netflix Original starring Pallavi Sharda and Suraj Sharma. You may recognize Suraj from How I met Your Father over on Disney Plus! While the Rom-Com genre is beyond saturated with mediocre streaming movies, Wedding Season tries to elevate above the rest.

Wedding Season is worth watching, full stop. It is both funny and engaging, with good characters. A large downfall of Rom-Coms lately is that they lack solid characters that the audience can get behind. Some good writing paired with good acting leads to characters you enjoy watching on the screen and it grows the emotional commitment to the outcome of the movie. That being said, the ending is still beyond obvious in the genre.

I don’t usually enjoy Rom-Coms, but our characters were really, really good, and I felt myself rooting for them even if I knew what was coming next.

Who is in Wedding Season?

While there are quite a few characters in Wedding Season, there are 5 I want to focus on. The first two being our protagonists, Asha and Ravi. Asha, played by Pallavi Sharda, has just moved from a well paying banking job to a non-profit that provides loans to a variety of people, with a current emphases on women. She is under constant scrutiny from her mother to find a husband and settle down, but she isn’t convinced that is what she wants with her life. Ravi, played by Saraj Sharma, is a MIT grad and a startup founder. With that impressive resume, he is also under pressure from his father to find a wife and settle down. Ravi seems more open to the idea, but can’t stand having his parents involved in his love life.

One of my favourite characters in this movie, while he doesn’t get a ton of screen time is James. James, played by Damian Thompson, is Asha’s boss. He is supportive, funny, and knows how the get the most of Asha when it is needed. He keeps her going in the right direction when life tries to steer her astray.

Our other two main-ish characters are Asha’s sister and her boyfriend. Priya, played by Arianna Afsar, is Asha’s older sister, and relates to what she is going through. Their shared experiences bring them closer through the movie, reinforcing that sisterly bond. Nick, played by Sean Kleier, is Priya’s boyfriend and the comic relief in many parts. His character is more free-spirited than anyone else in this movie, and it really helps balance out the tone in certain scenes. Is his character cringey at times, sure. It also works to elevate some pressure and add a couple more laughs.

What makes Wedding Season good?

I really enjoyed Wedding Season, start to finish. With a run time of 1:38, it’s a movie that can be consumed relatively quickly. That is a bonus, as the plot or the character arcs don’t drag on forever and become stagnant. It was a wonderful change of pace to see Netflix put together a Rom-Com with both a competent plot, some feel good moments, and likeable characters. Say as you wish, I think a Rom-Com hinges 100% on your characters. If Ravi and Asha weren’t likeable, Wedding Season turns into a mess in a hurry.

Saraj Sharma was wonderful in How I Met Your Father, and I really enjoyed him in Wedding Season as well. He plays a similar character in both and does a wonderful job. The ups and downs our characters go through and the little one liners here and there make all the different in this movie. He also does a wonderful job of portraying different emotions throughout the movie and really does a nice job of developing a consistent character.

Pallavi Sharda is also awesome in this. She has the most screen time, and she owns it. Her character is very likeable, but she is also very human. Not everything goes perfectly, there are struggles, and different factors that elicit different reactions. Her demeanour was very consistent with the character they were trying to build, and I think her acting, just like Sharma’s, really helped the emotional attachment to her character.

The plot is both a pro and a con. The pro is that it is interesting and competent. We have a plot that keeps moving along, and there is more to Wedding Season that just a love story. I really enjoyed that because it meant that not every single bloody scene hinged on the chemistry of our main characters, which let’s be honest gets really old after about half an hour. It felt more realistic to watch our characters handle struggles in their family live, personal lives, as well as their romantic lives along the journey to the ending we all know is coming.

The last pro I would like to touch on is secondary characters. Some pretty brutal rom-coms focus too heavily on the two main characters, and it puts a lot of movie pressure on each scene to be really well done. In the Wedding Season, we have a ton of hilarious secondary characters that either provide much needed comedic relief, spur our characters forward against their doubts, or even just add smaller sub-plots to keep the movie engaging. James, Priya, and Nick all provide this. I loved James, as he brought a different vibe to the movie than the rest of our characters. His relationship with Asha was different than anyone else, and that gave him the opportunity to speak freely. I didn’t always love Nick’s character, but I’m pretty certain he was create to be slightly annoying. He does provide some cute moments and some good laughs, but too much of the guy got old in a hurry.

What Makes Wedding Season Bad?

One of my only issues with Wedding Season is a general gripe with Rom-Coms. I really wish I couldn’t see every moment coming from 6 miles away. The intrigue is slightly less when you know what is coming, as most of these movies follow the same road map. Wedding Season is no different, with the predictable moments left, right and centre. For a Rom-Com, it might be nearly impossible to get away from that, but it is definitely a con in my mind.

The other issue I found with Wedding Season was the pacing was real slow at parts. It was an overly interesting movie with solid characters, but I found myself losing interest along the way. The beginning and the ending were really good, but it was the journey that started to put me to sleep.

Final Verdict

Wedding Season is a really solid movie with good characters. I really enjoyed the dynamics between our characters and the direction the plot took. The see through plot does take away from some of the intrigue, but if you are coming to a Rom-Com for intrigue, you are in the wrong place. Overall, an enjoyable movie and much better than I expected.