Let's give credit where it's due: director Rahul Shanklya knows how to keep things moving. At 129 minutes, the film never drags to a standstill, though it does start to spin its wheels somewhere around the interval. The first half is genuinely fun - the fish-out-of-water comedy of Sumit navigating life as a woman delivers a steady stream of chuckles, and Duggal commits to the bit with a goofy earnestness that's hard to resist.
Pragati Srivastava's Paridhi is the heart of the movie, and the chemistry between her and Duggal carries more weight than the film's sillier plot mechanics deserve. She gets the best emotional beats and sells them without overacting.
But the real MVP is the ensemble. Kumud Mishra can make reading a grocery list compelling, and here he's reliably excellent as Rai Saab. Gopal Datt's comic timing is surgical. Aayush Verma as Mihika brings a spark that hints at bigger things for the actor. The supporting cast is so good that whenever the spotlight narrows to just our leads, you feel the energy dip.
And that's the core issue. The premise, fresh on paper, starts creaking under scrutiny once the novelty wears off. The screenplay (which flits between genuine sweetness and broad slapstick) occasionally asks you to swallow plot conveniences that even the most forgiving rom-com fan will side-eye. There's a third-act reveal meant to land as a gut-punch, but it's telegraphed from so far away that it feels like a formality rather than a twist.
Tonally, the film struggles to decide if it wants to be a frothy farce or a sincere romance. It dabbles in both, and while the mashup occasionally works, some transitions feel like a genre whiplash. The music is pleasant but forgettable - nothing that'll climb your playlist. And for a movie built on the spectacle of cross-dressing comedy, it plays surprisingly safe; the humor leans on warm-hearted silliness rather than edgy satire, which is fine, though a sharper script could have mined more from the premise.
That said, Nakhrewaalii has a big, beating heart. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel, and there's something refreshing about a rom-com that just wants you to smile. The climactic emotional payoff, corny as it is, lands because the cast believes in it.
