Is there a modern-day romance between consenting adults who are at odds with each other? Is there a Bollywood film that has the guts to embrace no-holds-barred physicality? Finally, a film that respects mature audiences? Gehraiyaan increases our hopes but falls short of fulfilling them.
First and foremost. Deepika Padukone’s leading lady Alisha nicknamed Al is a strong woman who works for a living and wears the wounds of her past, which is something to be proud of. Her friendship with Karan (Dharya Karwa), a want tobe writer typing away irritably at his computer, swings back and forth between old loves and irritations. Things start changing during a weekend vacation with Al’s affluent cousin Tia (Ananya Pandey) and her busy-making-millions-in-real-estate-loverboy Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi), and it all turns into a dizzying kaleidoscope of desire and treachery.
The film excels at demonstrating how rapidly things can change and how one small falsehood may set off a chain reaction of lies. The startling closeness produced by a text, real names stored beneath aliases, and the persistent undertone of communicating with a third person while pretending to be a pair. We’ve all seen how these things can escalate and how permeable even seemingly solid boundaries can be, and how they can become the many elephants in the room that no one wants to address.
This quintet should have been a throbbing hot mess, with emotions bursting from tightly-reined-in history and scorching us. In ‘Kapoor & Sons,’ director Shakun Batra demonstrated his ability to mine emotional subtleties. ‘Gehraiyaan’ is too designed and choppy to get deep enough. We see everything, but we don’t feel enough of it: the tangle of barely dressed bodies in bed, the energy between two people who can’t keep their hands off one other.
Looking at such well-groomed and put-together folks always gives me a rush of joy. Deepika’s sloppy updo isn’t like any of us slapping our hair up carelessly: she looks groomed even when it’s in bits. The same can be true for the other characters (Siddhant, Ananya, and Dhairya), as well as Rajat Kapoor, who appears as Zain’s business associate: natty-on-yatches, check, casual beach wear, check, boardroom attire, check. Even the most adamant wardrobe Nazi cannot deny the excellent clothing and the assortment of stunning, toned bodies. Everyone liberally use the f word, sprinkling it throughout their remarks. It’s all really sleek, but it’s only on the surface: you have to rise off the screen from among the lovely landscape.
Naseeruddin Shah, who plays Al’s distant father, is the only member in this ensemble who is adequately rumpled and seems genuine. When they’re together, the film breathes a bit easier and reaches out to us.
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Gehraiyaan Deepika Padukone Bollywood Celebrity Entertainment Kolkata
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