In short, the film has all the ingredients for making a really good recipe for a film. So, how does the final dish taste?
Like the title of the movie, the answer to the question lies in the depth of it. And like the film, it’s not a straight answer.
First, the plot. This revolves around Alisha (Deepika), in a steady relationship, in a typical Mumbai striving life stage with her long term boyfriend (Dhairya), trying to get a business, career, and life going, facing the ups and downs of making it and not making it, continuously haunted by a troubled childhood past and family relationships. Getting together with her once-bestie-but-now-distanced cousin, Tia (Ananya), and her fiancé (Zain, Siddhant) one weekend in their old childhood home in Alibaug, triggers an instant attraction and an ongoing hidden relationship between Alisha and Zain. From then, it’s a roller coaster ride of a newfound passion and love on one side and the pragmatic realities of current relationships and each of their individual businesses-in-the-making, on the other. Add to that their collective troubled family history that continues to play a shadow on Alisha’s mind. And the web of an uneasy, anxiety-ridden emotionally charged quadrangle of love-past-business-darkness gets deeper and deeper.
The film does a fabulous job of capturing today’s very real urban millennial “quarter-life-crisis” life stage. We see the sights and sounds of Mumbai life as the backdrop for the everyday struggles of the average youth trying to hack it in a complex no-rules society, where everyone is on their own, figuring out their present, overcoming their past, and desperately trying to write their uncertain future, both professionally and personally. The frustrating attempt of trying to get control of a time and a life that is fundamentally out of their control is a poignant comment of our times, and perhaps a foregone conclusion of inevitable heart-breaks and mind-fuck consequences. This is no longer a world of happy endings. Welcome to Bollywood 2022. And for that, we applaud the coming of age of mainstream Hindi cinema.
Then, it is this narrative that is played brilliantly by Deepika. She looks and acts like a mature actor, who has grown and become more beautiful in her talent. She looks great too, by the way. Alisha’s character is written really well, and Deepika does justice to it, by playing it to the tee. Her dialogues, her face, her body language, and her silence all act together to give a complete performance of Alisha, who becomes the central character through which we view the entire story. This is Deepika’s film and one of her finest performances. An utter delight to watch her.
And then there is Naseeruddin Shah, as her estranged father, who, although in only a few scenes, lifts those scenes and in fact the overall story through his sheer genius talent. One of the last scenes is a tender moment between Alisha and her father, which probably is the ‘frame’ scene of the film, that you could argue, makes the entire film.
And, oh, the soundtrack is fab too. Great to see some good Bollywood music with new artists after a long time.
But that’s probably it.
Ananya Pandey, as Alisha’s young and more innocent cousin, is not bad and carries her role. And Dhairya, as Alisha’s (ex-) boyfriend plays his part too. But the biggest disappointment comes from Siddhant Chaturvedi, as Zain, the other critical character that is responsible for making or breaking the film. And he breaks it. To be fair, Zain’s character itself is not written half as well as Alisha's. It’s like the writer spent all his time on Alisha and just fitted Zain conveniently into the story. And as the plot gets darker, Zain’s character meanders and evolves unconvincingly, leaving us a little cheated and annoyed at having invested our emotions in him. And on top of that Siddhant does a poor job of performing the role. He is not convincing as Alisha’s lover, or as the ambitious millennial start-up entrepreneur, or as a ruthless businessman, or as a cheating boyfriend. Perhaps a more talented actor like Ranbir or Ranveer, or Ayushman would have saved the role and the film. What a pity. After rocking it in Gully Boy (https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2019/02/gully-boy-film-review.html), we were really rooting for Siddhant. But alas.
Trying to steer away from the stereotypical Bollywood happy entertainment, the film perhaps veers a little to the other extreme. This is not a feel-good film, but a feel-bad film, and for most of the movie, we feel like we also need the Valium that Alisha is popping in her mouth every day. This creates a less-than-great watching experience, especially when we don’t feel convinced of Zain, his motivations, and the resulting negative consequences that are making us feel bad in the first place. The film goes through twists and turns and sometimes unnecessarily so, tagging us along, and draining and stretching us, in not very good ways. As a result, we feel bad without really a reason to feel bad. Shakun, we have seen you break the stereotypical feel-good Bollywood format and yet give us an extremely loveable and enjoyable film in Kapoor & Sons. You know how to do that. What went wrong here?
All in all, it’s worth a watch, especially if you’re a Deepika Padukone fan, because she is all there is to the film. And for seeing the evolution of a potential new genre of films in mainstream Bollywood (should we call it OTT Cinema?). There is also a beauty in the over-arching message for our times, of the need to accept our past, give ourselves second chances, and keep moving, one day at a time, without necessarily counting on a happy ending.
But overall, the film itself falls below expectations. That’s unfortunately the gehra sach!
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