A passionate love story of intense proportions told through the lens of one man, the only man that matters, the only man that can love like this, the only man that can feel like this, the man named Kabir Singh and the actor named Shahid Kapoor.
The story is about #KabirSingh, a brilliant all-rounder student at a Delhi medical college, training to be a surgeon. A genius student on the path to becoming a genius surgeon, who practically owns the college through his excellence and through his dada-giri. There is only one problem. Anger management. The sheer rage that comes from an uncontrollable intensity of his character, who refuses to stand for bull shit in the world. Falling head-over-heels over fresher Preeti Sikka (Kiara Advani), his love follows the same uncontrollable intensity. The love story continues till the girl’s parents get in the way and after a series of unfortunate events, she is married off and so starts Kabir’s life of self-destruction contrasted against his brilliant surgeon career. Living through tobacco, alcohol, drugs, casual sex, his life meanders towards what seems like an inevitable tragic end.. or does it?
As seems obvious from the plot, the story is not really the mainstay of this film. And yet, as we sat there consuming the movie, it felt pretty clear that the film was consuming us. Despite the fact that we disagree with some of his misplaced anger. Despite the fact that the women in the film are shown as weak or insignificant. Despite the fact that he is an entitled rich kid who is being over-indulged by people that love him. Despite the fact that we hate him for being a bully to everyone around him, including the women, who just accept his dominance.
Because the film by-passes the brain and speaks directly to our hearts. It’s the mark of a powerful movie, that makes us forget what we think is right and wrong and makes us just feel what the main character is feeling. We know sometimes what he’s doing is just wrong. But we can’t help it. We know that he is destroying his life in alcohol and drugs. But we can’t control ourselves. We know he needs to move on from Preeti and get on with his life. But we can’t control the intensity of our love. We feel what he feels. For those few hours, we are Kabir Singh.
And Kabir Singh is Shahid Kapoor. What a performance. This has to be one of his best ever. He is raw, angry, passionate, crazy, scary, pathetic, vulnerable, suffering, disgusting, sad, hateful, funny, and authentic. He has put himself out there, with no stone unturned. From the first scene, he owns the film. It is Shahid from beginning to the end. He runs the film, raises it, crashes it to the ground, brings it back, swallows it and spits it out. He reaches out to the audience and pulls them into his life, forcing us to see the entire story from his point of view. He is compelling and convincing. He is bold and makes the character his own. Every time he loses his cool, we can feel his anger, even as we are scared for the receiver of the blow. Every time, he swigs down quantities of alcohol, we can feel the intoxication, even as we want to stop him. Every time, he misses Preeti, we feel the hopeless pain of separation, even as we want to forget her. Shahid, hats off!
Yes, some of the regressive narrative of the film does bother us in the back of our minds. But there are enough moments in the film that remind us that Kabir Singh is not a regressive patriarch. His first acts of love are a gentle kiss on the cheek and a nap in her lap. He waits for her to make the first move before they have sex. He wants his woman to be strong and stand up for what she believes in. There is a scene when he is teaching Preeti the different body parts through sketching on that part of the body, but respectfully walks away when it is the turn for teaching the upper thorax. Yet, the overly male bias of the film is palpable. It’s him, his male friends, his bother, his dad. And the woman’s perspective is completely (and maybe deliberately) missing. And for that, we do fault the movie. Barring one refreshing exception. The Dadi (Kamini Kaushal), who is cool, sorted and all-knowing in her advice and guidance to Kabir, and who finally becomes his saviour.
(With the disclaimer of not having watched Arjun Reddy), Kabir Singh is an impressively told, bravely acted, passionate love story that hasn’t been seen on the screen for a very long time. And an angry intense love story is probably what’s needed during an angry intense time in our world.
As we walk out of the theatre and we emerge out of “Being Kabir Singh”, we feel the hangover of the ride we’ve had, the character we’ve been, the person we’ve come to know, and his insanity. And dare I say, we carry a little bit of him inside of us. Was that just a movie!
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