Bareilly Ki Barfi
- Director
- Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
- Studio
- Junglee Pictures
- Release Date
- 17 August 2017
- Running Time
- 116 min
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
- Budget
- ₹20.00 Cr
- Box Office
- ₹58.75 Cr
Review
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's *Bareilly Ki Barfi* is a film that understands the grammar of modern Indian romance without sacrificing authenticity or warmth. The premise—a young woman falling for the author of a book that mirrors her life, only to discover he's been orchestrating the entire courtship—could easily veer into manipulation territory, yet the film navigates it with surprising grace. Kriti Sanon delivers a genuinely spirited performance as Bitti, capturing both her defiance and vulnerability without resorting to caricature. Rajkummar Rao matches her energy as Chirag, bringing a quiet earnestness to what could have been a creepy premise; his hesitation and eventual honesty feel earned rather than convenient. The chemistry between them crackles precisely because their banter feels lived-in, and the supporting cast—particularly Ayushmann Khurrana's turn as the bewildered Pritam—adds texture rather than clutter.
What makes this work is Tiwari's refusal to sentimentalize Bareilly itself or Bitti's rejection of societal expectations. The small-town setting becomes a character rather than a backdrop, and the film trusts its audience to appreciate a love story that builds on mutual discovery rather than grand gestures. The writing is sharp when it needs to be, tender when it counts. That said, the film doesn't entirely escape the pitfalls of its genre—the third-act mechanics feel slightly forced, and there's a stretch where the emotional stakes get muddled by the romantic geometr
Storyline
So there's this girl named Bitti living in Bareilly who's pretty fed up with the whole arranged marriage scene. One day she randomly picks up this novel called "Bareilly Ki Barfi" and absolutely freaks out because the main character in the book is basically her—same personality, same quirks, everything! She becomes obsessed with finding the author whose name is on the cover, thinking that if this person wrote about someone just like her, maybe they could actually understand and love her for who she really is.
She starts asking around and meets this guy named Chirag who runs a printing press in town. He offers to help her get in touch with the author by passing letters back and forth between them. What Bitti doesn't know is that Chirag is actually the one who wrote the whole book years ago, and he used a fake name to publish it. He's super curious about whether Bitti is actually similar to his ex-girlfriend who the character was based on, so he's secretly using this whole letter exchange to figure her out.
As time goes on, Bitti and Chirag become really close friends, but she's still dying to meet the "real" author. Chirag keeps stalling because he wants to understand her better first and figure out where this whole thing is going. Eventually he decides to bring the actual Pritam Vidrohi—his friend whose name he borrowed for the book—into the picture, just to keep the charade going a bit longer.
