Danish Aslam’s Khwaabon Ka Jhamela is a sanitised adaptation of the Canadian comedy My Awkward Sexual Adventure (2012). The unexplicit Indian version’s brightest idea is to transform the exotic dancer in the original version who coaches a fumbling accountant in the joys of sex into an intimacy coordinator.
The JioCinema release is led by Prateik Babbar, playing a Parsi from Mumbai who is a flop show in the bedroom. Zubin has flubbed his engagement with Shehnaaz (Kubbra Sait) by literally putting her to sleep when they both should be wide awake. Zubin persuades Ruby (Sayani Gupta), who helps actors perform sex scenes in films, to help him tease out his repressed manhood.
Khwaabon Ka Jhamela is set mostly in London, far away from the local flavour that might have made Zubin’s predicament more believable. An unspoken consequence of Zubin’s agony is surely the poor birth rate among the Parsi population in India, which has led to community schemes that encourage procreation. (Perhaps Ruby can help out there too?)
“Anyway, whatever it is, I don’t care,” a character says. Aslam’s screenplay, written along with Arpita Chatterjee and Harman Baweja, tries to affect the romcom vibes of the previous decade while also acknowledging newfound concerns about gender identity and the correct use of pronouns.
Zubin flounces about London in pink slippers and attends a Pride parade, but his anxiety is rather old-fashioned. Besides, hasn’t he heard of that corner of the internet where lies a possible solution to his problem?
The 120-minute film is salvaged by Sayani Gupta’s perky Ruby, a welcome send-up of Zubin’s mission and patches of on-point humour. Among the nicely observed secondary characters are Kubbra Sait and Danish Husain as Ruby’s estranged father. But the overall effect is limp and unmemorable, like Zubin must have appeared to Shahnaaz.
