Half Girlfriend trailer: Arjun Kapoor perfect as obsessive lover Bihari Madhav Jha

This May the linguistic class divide will be out in the open. Irrfan Khan and Saba Qamar are obsessed to get their daughter admitted to an English medium school in Hindi Medium, while Arjun Kapoor’s lack of proficiency in English leads to heartbreak in Half Girlfriend. The former releases on 12 May, while Mohit Suri’s Half Girlfriend hits the screens a week later.

Adapted from Chetan Bhagat’s novel of the same name, Suri's Half Girlfriend is a familiar tale of love becoming an obsession. What will set the film apart is the realistic traits of protagonist Madhav Jha, played by Arjun.

Madhav is a Bihari boy, with poor conversational English skills and low esteem. But that doesn't stop him from falling for the affluent, chic Riya Somani from St. Steven’s, a plush college in Delhi.   

His honesty lands him admission in the college, where he befriends and later falls in love with Riya played by Shraddha Kapoor.

Riya tells Madhav that she does not love him, but could be his half girlfriend. So, what really is a half girlfriend? We have to wait for the film to find out.

The plot is a cliched one, but the trailer scores for Madhav's innocence and his obsession with Riya. Arjun perfectly plays the small-town boy with low self-esteem. Arjun, who once weighed over 100 kgs, suffered from low self-esteem in real life. As an actor, he has his limitations, but Arjun has put in the hard work to be where he is today. Arjun's seems to have the requisite qualities to play the vulnerable, obsessive character.

Save for her impressive basketball skills, Shraddha has little to offer in the trailer. The two Kapoors make for an impressive pairing, though. While Madhav is obsessive, Riya comes across as a measured girl.

Vikrant Massey is impressive as the good friend who tries to tell Madhav to give up his foolish dreams. Massey gave a glimpse of his talent in Vikramaditya Motwane’s Lootera (2013).   

The trailer also reminds one of a popular dialogue from Sultan and a classic Mehndi Hasan ghazal. Sultan (Salman Khan) tells Aarfa (Anushka Sharma) that he was once rejected by her because he couldn’t speak properly. Madhav seems to have similar conversational issues. The late ghazal king had a popular ghazal, ‘Zindagi main toh sabhi pyaar kiya karte hain, main toh mar kar meri jaan bhi tujhe chaunga’. The trailer has a similar song 'Main Phir Bhi Tumko Chahunga'.

All said and done, the trailer of Half Girfriend strikes the right chord with jilted lovers.

Half Girlfriend is set to be released on 19 May.