Manmarziyaan

In Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan, love stays clear of the warm, cuddly, butterflies-in-stomach emotions of puppy love. In place of the cutesy stuff, the film’s lead pair, Rumi and Vicky (Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal), are caught up in a fierce whirlwind of carnivorous lust.

Vicky, a loser with a bad haircut, a string of unfinished college degrees and no life plan, jumps over rooftops to be with Rumi. Their attraction drives them directly into a dingy room where they are caught red-handed by Rumi’s mother.

From the commotion, it’s obvious this was not the first time Vicky was caught in a state of partial undress, nor the first time Rumi was reprimanded.

Despite furrowed brows and grunts, the parents in the film appear calm, easily giving in to the youngsters’ whims. Their nonchalance make them equivalent to cardboard cutouts; people who are just there in frames to attest that Rumi and Vicky live in a small but jam-packed community in Amritsar.

The film, and the story, doesn’t need parents much anyways.

For the first hour, Manmarziyaan fixates on their lust story as screenwriter Kanika Dhillon (co-writer of Ra.One) and Kashyap tell us, again and again, just how immature and blind to reason Rumi and Vicky are.

Rumi, who like most girls her age wants to get married, is willing to stay as Vicky’s girlfriend just as long as he brings his parents to meet hers. Vicky, being the noncommittal slacker, diverts her attention by uttering romantic gobbledygook that fires up her sexual instincts.

Theirs is a strange, frustrating relationship — one that Kashyap happily and masterfully exploits until the plot slickly introduces Robbie Bhatia (Abhishek Bachchan) in the mix.

Robbie is an England-settled banker whose family briefly relocates to Amritsar to find him a mate. Even with better candidates on his marriage broker’s list, Robbie is somehow smitten by Rumi. The plot doesn’t hide the fact that he will marry Rumi in spite of the anguish he will eventually suffer.

Kashyap and Dhillon tactfully craft a refined drama into an unsympathetic, unappealing, unoriginal premise that deserves it’s ‘A’ certification, but not the CBFC’s ban — which means only the non-cantonment cinemas in Sindh are running the film. Without giving away spoilers, the film slips into a very uncomfortable territory that would, rightly, raise eyebrows; but then again, far worse things — visual and implied — have been cleared by the censors.

Manmarziyaan is Bachchan’s return to films after a brief hiatus away from bad scripts. Although one can surmise that he will play a martyr of romance — i.e. the keen and kindhearted husband archetype — the role doesn’t give him much wriggle room to build his character out of the norm. In the few scenes where Bachchan does perform, Kashyap inexplicably cuts away to Pannu’s expression.

Pannu, of course, has become a fine actress who consistently signs demanding roles, and Kaushal is perfect as the infantile-minded grown-up who wants a relationship without the marriage label.

The real stars of the film though are Kashyap and Dhillon. The latter’s rock solid screenplay (even at times when scenes drag) is matched by the former’s quirky astuteness as a director. There are enough bits and pieces on the screen to warrant a second viewing — but purely for analytical reasons, not fun.

Manmarziyaan treads very uncomfortable territory that will easily raise a few eyebrows. Batti Gul Meter Chalu never gets its tone right

Batti Gul Meter Chalu

When Sushil Kumar Pant aka SK (Shahid Kapoor) is not hitting the bull’s eye at late night archery competitions, or romancing his childhood friend Nauti (Shraddha Kapoor), he teaches upcoming lawyers two tricks of the trade. One: use law to fish cash out of people’s wallets; and two: remember that there is no dearth of moneymaking opportunities because there’s a case happening every minute in India.

Settled in a small Ganga-side district called New Tehri in Uttarkhand, SK is a smart-aleck lawyer who takes prides in making settlements out of court. To validate his slyness, the film takes us to his first client [target?]— a local travel agent whose hyperbolic advertisement costs him a few hundred thousand in compensation. Promptly afterwards, we see SK in action once again; his second prey is a biscuit manufacturer who also wrongly advertised that his product would help a child’s growth spurt.

SK would call himself a common man’s lawyer — the Indian equivalent to Shaan Mirza from Actor in Law — if he had a conscience.

Late into Batti Gul Meter Chalu (BGMC), SK will battle a big electricity supply company in court, who is billing people like mad while cutting power for hours (like KE).

The issue in BGMC is not the case; rather it is director Shree Narayan Kumar’s handling of the film’s first half.

Shifting to and fro between tongue-in-cheek commentary on social issues and SK’s love-life, the screenplay chooses to establish characters and settings before getting its hands dirty.

After a flat, leaden first 30 minutes that deliberates on the friendship-cum-love-triangle between SK, his best chum Sunder (Divyendu Sharma, playing a docile guy-next-door) and Nauti, the film revs itself up for the long run. However, at over two-hours and 45 minutes BGMC becomes quite protracted, at the expense of its relatable storyline.

Narayan Kumar seems to be under the influence of his last film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. The message and the romance clash at times, but even when they mingle one hardly feels anything for the characters (with exception to Shraddha Kapoor).

Kapoor plays SK with an irksome whipper-snapper attitude that keeps both Nauti and the viewers at a distance. When BGMC ends, one notices a lack of personal resolve for the leads. Even in a well-made film, that lingering impression could prove to be disastrous.

One can see that Narayan has matured on a technical level, framing and choreographing his actors with (what I assume is) a newly found flair for dynamic camerawork.

By his next film, I hope he gets the insight to cut down and streamline his film, irrespective of the smooth flow of scenes.

One should never come out of the cinema with a tired, aching back.

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 23rd, 2018