Hate is a strong word, but there seems to be a lot of it for the new Karan Johar-produced Netflix film Nadaaniyaan, whose title, badly officially translated as “innocence” — a better fit would’ve been “youthful follies” — perfectly defines the story at hand.

Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor, Sridevi and Boney Kapoor’s youngest daughter, last seen in Loveyapa and as Betty Cooper in The Archies), is a privileged, young high-schooler who is emotionally suffering through the on-the-brink-of-divorce status of her parents (Sunil Shetty and Mahima Chaudhry), and the broken friendship between her two sister-like buddies from childhood.

Pia, you see, had been getting salacious texts from a guy in their class whom one of her two friends likes, but rather than tell him off, or inform her BFFs, she lets the texts roll in. The messages are discovered and, on her return to school, when she is confronted by everyone, Pia does the only thing that comes to her mind: fabricate a boyfriend.

With Pia being a social butterfly with a happening internet profile, the secrecy appears far-fetched to everyone in her school. She, meanwhile, searches for the ideal candidate and, in one of those nonsensical meet-cute scenes, sees Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan, Saif Ali Khan’s and Amrita Singh’s son) as he is flashing his chiseled chest and abs to the debate class, after winning the captaincy.

Seeing the ruggedly handsome young achiever, who is also a hard-working international scholarship hopeful from a humble, working class family from Greater Noida — his dad is a doctor and the mum is a teacher at his high school (Jugal Hansraj, Diya Mirza, both quite good) — Pia hires him to play boyfriend for 25 grand a week.

A factory-like mindset reigns in Nadaaniyaan

The two then embark on social media shenanigans where she shows off bits and pieces of her new boyfriend (the two of them secreting away together in broad daylight in a school full of students is mighty far-fetched). The boy’s grand reveal happens on her birthday, first leading to flabbergasted expressions of wonder and awe, and then, wouldn’t you know it, gasps at the class difference.

Social ridicule aside — the cliched class difference in the storyline doesn’t make sense in today’s world, especially from her socialite mum’s side, who we eventually learn also comes from a slightly upper-middle class family — the two slowly grow close as friends, with the young man helping Pia’s family see her potential.

The high society angle, the anti-patriarchy jabs, and an angle of infidelity — the hallmarks of Karan Johar’s narrative style — fail badly.

The casting of the nepo-babies is another predicament, because the two are inconsistent and amateur as actors. Ibrahim Ali Khan does better in the first act while Khushi is plain bad, then 20 minutes later, the roles reverse.

Storytelling wise, Nadaaniyaan is not as bad as the hate it is getting — just don’t interpret the not-as-bad comment as a compliment. The vibe is decidedly romance K-Drama-like, from the bright, highkey, un-filmlike lighting, to the loose frames, to the lacking production design.

The combination is as half-baked as the maturity in the writer’s room (Ishita Moitra, Riva Razdan Kapoor and Jehan Handa wrote the screenplay), and the factory-like, churning-out mindset that powers every decision of the film.

Streaming on Netflix, Nadaaniyaan is rated suitable for ages 13 and over, and features two lip locks at the very end of the film — conservative parents beware

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 23rd, 2025