Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, 2023, Film Review

It’s the season of feminism and progressive stories. If Barbie was Hollywood’s way of provoking us against our regressive social structure, Rocky Aur Rani is Bollywood’s ode to the same. And true to each style of storytelling, if Barbie takes one issue (unequal gender balance of society), Rocky Aur Rani, attempts to take on ALL possible regressive mores of our society. From women empowerment to infidelity in loveless marriages to age discrimination, to class-ism, to intellectual discrimination, to patriarchy, and of course, the challenge of finding love by the youth in today’s increasingly complex world. 

The story revolves around Rocky (Ranveer Singh) and Rani (Alia Bhatt) who have a chance meeting when Rocky, looking for his dadaji’s (Dharmender) long lost love Jamini Chatterjee (Shabana Azmi), meets Rani (who happens to be Jamini’s granddaughter). In an attempt to cure Dadaji’s dementia, as they try to get the two septuagenarians together, the inevitable happens and Rocky and Rani fall in love with each other. The trouble? Their families and backgrounds are as far apart as possible. Rani’s family is an upper-middle-class intellectual professional Bengali family in CR Park, Delhi, immersed in Tagore and the arts, music, and all other cliches you can think of when you think of the Bhadralok. Rocky’s family, is a super rich patriarchal Punjabi business family from old Delhi, with all its cliches you can think of. Knowing that their different backgrounds could create havoc in their relationship in the future, they decide to do a live-in with each other’s family for 3 months, with the aim to resolve this. What follows is a series of emotional and humorous incidents, towards the final happy ending that we all know is coming.

In many ways, the success of this film is pleasantly surprising. Because in 2023, if this old-school love story from my generation is working again, maybe the cynicism on love and romance in the movie-making of the last decade is beginning to wane. Rocky aur Rani is a classic Gen X love story from the 90s. Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl fall in love. Boy and Girl have love ke dushman (usually the family). Boy and Girl get together to fight against the dushman. And love conquers all. Boy and Girl live happily ever after. This simple story, coupled with lots of retro references to old movies, and songs, is what makes the film eminently watchable and fun.

And what really makes the movie come alive, is the two main leads and the chemistry they share. Ranveer and Alia are a joy to watch both by themselves and when they are together. Ranveer, even with his stereotypical character, plays the part so adorably that you can’t help loving him, despite his very obvious in-your-face flaws, much like Rani herself. Rani, again, despite being a cliched intellectual Bengali character, is so vibrant and impactful, that you can’t help agreeing with the transformation she is bringing in Rocky and his regressive patriarchal family. And when together, their love for each other even though they are cringe-ly different (She tests his levels of knowledge by asking him where is West Bengal!!!), is so irrepressible that you can’t help cheering for them as they conquer their own limitations and then use that to conquer the family barriers to their love story. And to top this off, is the heartwarming presence of  Dharmender and some glowing moments by Shabana Azmi, that add just the right verve to the movie.

While there were a lot of hackneyed lessons and messages throughout the story, championing progressiveness and inclusiveness, some of the new areas like the hypocrisy of the supposedly progressive intellectual society being un-inclusive to the less educated business Punjabi society, bring some freshness to the messaging. 

But perhaps, the big miss in the film is not building the richness of all the other characters, played by some talented actors. All the others, including Jaya Bachchan evoking her inner Amitabh Bachchan’s stubborn patriarch from K3G, are less impactful and a bit too caricaturish, leaving us disappointedly distant from their side of the story. The character of Dhanalakshmi (Jaya)  having built the business empire singlehandedly as a woman, had an opportunity to bring another feminist angle to the story, instead of restricting her to a narrow saas-bahu narrative. Similar opportunities are lost in Rocky’s mother and sister, who are just shown as uni-dimensional victims of a patriarchal home, or Rocky’s father, a uni-dimensional angry alpha man. Or Rani’s parents, playing uni-dimensional arty-intellectual-British-hangover Bengali parents. Alas, K-Jo!

The other big thing we miss from a classic Bollywood box office entertainer is a good soundtrack. The music is really not good. Apart from the very average Jhumka song and the retro songs re-sings, the lack of good songs to get up and cheer for, is felt profoundly in a love story movie. And is something that will reduce the life of the movie, after we walk out of the theatres. What a loss! 

But, at the end of the day, what we get to see is a classic Bollywood Karan Johar fare that’s entertaining, enjoyable, and full paisa-vasool. It’s good old, loud, over-the-top, jhinchak, colorful, vibrant, full-on Hindi cinema that we last saw in Pathaan in Jan, and had almost lost hope that there will be more of in the year. Rocky aur Rani delivers to our fundamental need for the box office fix. Toh zyaada sochne ka nahi. Dekho, hason, thoda sa life lesson le lo, khaao, piyo aur khisko. 

Barbie, 2023, Film Review

Touted as the most important feminist movie of the year, acclaimed director Greta Gerwig (of Little Women fame), and Mattel’s marketing genius, brings to ‘real-reel’ life for the first time the much loved and controversial iconic toy, Barbie. 

The film revolves around, well, Barbie, played by the gorgeous and talented Margot Robbie, whose perfect world starts falling apart when thoughts of death and an identity crisis forces her to journey to the real world. Where she realizes that, unlike what the Barbie world felt they had done for humankind, the real world is still ruled by toxic masculinity and patriarchy, and that the whole ‘women-rule-the-world’ was just a clever ruse by men to continue to stay in power. Infected by the same, Ken (again a good performance by Ryan Gosling) brings patriarchy back to Barbie world, which crumbles easily and completely. This triggers the rest of the story where Barbie, helped by real-world mom Gloria (American Ferrera, of TV series Super Store fame) and her daughter Sasha (played by Ariana Greenblatt, seen in Netflix’s Awake) join hands with the other Barbies (led by weird Barbie, Kate McKinnon), and hatch a plan to use male ego and vain power-hunger against them, taking back control of the world, restoring ‘perfection’ once again. 

The film felt a little bit like The Matrix, if given a choice of the red pill and the blue pill by Morpheus, Trinity would have stepped forward and chosen the hidden option of the pink pill, giving Neo no option but to tag along with her into a confusing and supposedly enlightening trip across wonderland. Like The Matrix, the film clearly argues against taking the blue pill and going back to living comfortably in our gender-imbalanced world, not acknowledging the troubled reality of our social and political structure. That, we wholeheartedly support and cheer for. BUT, unlike The Matrix, the film doesn’t promote taking the red pill either, which would have forced us to “feel” the grossly unequal and toxic world through an emotional ride into what we see around us, making us take a stand and putting up a fight to change the world for the better. INSTEAD, the film pushes the pink pill, which settles at a moral science textbook lesson for two hours, given by the various characters in the film. As a result, we walk out of the theatre, feeling lectured to, rather than being empathetically immersed in what could have been an emotional story of a genius idea - using arguably one of the most controversial-feminist icons to tell a feminist story.

Not to take away from the fact that there are some powerful moments in the film. The opening scene with little girls being saved by Barbie, from their house-house games sets a powerful ambition for the movie. The scenes with the brilliant Will Ferrel, as the CEO of Mattel, embodying the hypocrisy of a society that claims we are living in a more gender-equal world today. The moment when Barbie realizes that it was Gloria, the mother, who used to play with Barbie, not her daughter, who has become a too-smart-for-her-boots teenager. The scenes where Ken is confused but excited to see patriarchy ruling in the real world, wonderfully emoted by Gosling. The forgotten Mattel models in Allan and other Barbies. The many jokes on its own self as a movie made by Mattel’s marketing department. (“Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism have been solved”). And many priceless and moving dialogues throughout the film, especially Gloria’s monologue on how it is literally impossible to be a woman. And others like “When I found out patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I lost interest anyway” (Ken), or “"We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they have come” (Ruth, creator of Barbie). Through all these moments, we are cheering the heart and the intention and the purpose of this film. And we are shouting to Barbie “You go, girl” all through. And oh ya, the soundtrack is great too.

And, believe me, I totally understand the need to spell out F-E-M-I-N-I-S-M, letter by letter, word by word, lecture by lecture, issue by issue, because it’s such a big challenge in our society that people just don’t get it even after 50 years of the revolution. But, change comes when people act, and action comes from emotions. Unless we feel what Barbie is going through when her perfect world crumbles, and why Ken falls into the patriarchy trap, still ending up miserable, and how they together feel when they build a happy ending, we will never act, we will never change. 

On the whole, a great act of activism for a cause that we all support and rally behind, and at best a brilliant marketing ploy by Mattel, but beyond that, I must say, it didn’t move my cheese. 

But then, I’m just a Ken, what do I know!