What if, and I know this is crazy, she falls in love with a prince?

I have to admit I'm a little mystified by Khoobsurat (2014).  It's a romantic comedy with a very old fashioned story and a plot that is entirely predictable, and yet it still manages to be not at all what I was expecting.

Sonam Kapoor plays Mili Chakravarty, a gifted physical therapist and free spirit, a woman who pointedly does not have a boyfriend because (as a brief flashback demonstrates) none of the men she meets can handle her extreme level of quirkiness.  As the film opens, she's working for the Kolkata Knight Riders, but as the season ends she takes a job in the royal household of Shekhar Singh Rathore (Amir Raza Hussain.)

Shekhar is wheelchair bound, and stubbornly refuses to cooperate with any sort of physical therapy; he's already driven forty doctors away.  His wife Nirmala (Ratna Pathak Shah) has taken over management of the household, and she does so with strict rules and chilly efficiency.  Vikram (Fawad Khan), the obligatory handsome but stuffy prince, manages the business and maintains an entirely proper engagement to the lovely Kiara (Aditi Rao Hydari).  And younger sister Divya (Simran Jahani) is preparing to attend Oxford but secretly dreams of becoming an actress.  The family are living in the shadow of a family tragedy which they all refuse to discuss, which means they are in desperate need of a quirky free spirit to break them out of their individual shells and teach them to live again, and that is exactly what they get.

There's not much point in elaborating on the plot, because it is remorselessly by-the-numbers.  It's the execution that's different; the film keeps flirting with Bollywood tropes, but is never quite ready to commit.  They set up multiple dance numbers which promptly don't happen.  (To be fair, there is one dance number in the movie, and another during the closing credits.)  Mili is kidnapped by five local thugs, and Vikram rescues her by . . . bringing the ransom money and shaming one of the thugs into going away.

Instead, we get conversations.  Lots of conversations, and some of the dialogue is very sharp indeed.  We also get occasional snatches of the characters' thoughts, which are completely unnecessary because the actors are good at acting and can convey thoughts and emotions with a glance or a raised eyebrow.  There is no need to tell when the movie is doing such a good job of showing.

So, Khoobsurat is not what I expected.  And that's fine; not every movie has to be masala, after all.  There's room in the world for a sweet, quirky romance that manages to stick to one genre for the entire movie. It's a well made movie aimed squarely at people who are not me.