Gehraiyaan review: Dive straight in to watch this one!

Gehraiyaan

Director: Shakun Batra

Writers: Ayesha Devitre Dhillon, Shakun Batra, Sumit Roy, Yash Sahai

Cast: Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Dhairya Karwa, Naseeruddin Shah, Rajat Kapoor

Cinematography: Kaushal Shah

Editing: Nitesh Bhatia

Music: Kabeer Kathpalia

Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

At surface (read trailer), Gehraiyaan appeared to be a domestic drama about infidelity. But beneath that surface lie people carrying the weight of their past. There are secrets, trauma, mental health, ambitions and of course relationship problems. At once, Gehraiyaan felt like Drinking Buddies (2013) meets Hannah And Her Sisters (1986) meets The Salesman (2016). That takes away nothing from Batra, of course. The film is not mumblecore like Joe Swanberg’s charming little Drinking Buddies. We’re not laughing at/with people dealing with anxiety making wrong choices in relationships/career like in Hannah And Her Sisters (or for that matter any Woody Allen movie). However, Valium, an anxiety medication which appears in almost every Woody Allen film makes an appearance here as well. Batra is a big Woody fan. But like Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, it challenges the morality of the characters and in turn the viewers.

The film is more than 2 hours 30 minutes long. But Batra justifies the runtime by skillfully weaving the layered narrative. What appeals the most is that there’s no pretense. Neither in the characters, nor in the actors playing them. Alisha (Deepika Padukone) and Tia (Ananya Panday) are cousins. Alisha is in a live-in relationship with Karan (Dhairya Karwa), their childhood friend. Tia is engaged to Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi). Alisha and Karan are in a broken relationship. Tia and Zain look as if everything is hunky-dory. There’s a strange feeling of intimacy between Zain and Alisha from the moment they meet each other as the two couples go out to Alibaug on Zain’s yacht. Zain’s advances are reciprocated by Alisha and the two start an affair.

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It’s a conversational film. But the conversations are short and the scenes are shot from different angles. Cutting between these angles gives the narrative a certain pace. Nothing remarkable is being said, the dialogue is organic. We are used to seeing screenplays stretching early on in a film and then the makers trying to pack everything else in the latter half of the film. Gehraiyaan is a type of film which could have fallen into that trap. But it makes best use of its runtime.

The film is a creative and technical knockout. Groovy music and a haunting background score lingers on your mind long after you’ve watched the film. And so do the performances. Speaking of which, Deepika is brilliant as Alisha. She is growing as a performer in nuanced narratives such as Gehraiyaan, Piku, and Tamasha. Roles like Mastani and Padmavati have the harness of costume, weapons, and over the top emotions and filmy dialogues. Watching such costume dramas is a task for me. In films like Gehraiyaan an actor is truly naked, living a truth.

Siddhant Chaturvedi carries forward his confidence from Gully Boy and Bunty Aur Babli 2. He becomes the shrewd, deceptive Zain. Dhairya Karwa as Karan wanders around comfortably. He somewhat reminded me of Jake Johnson’s character in Drinking Buddies. Johnson’s performance is one of the most natural ones that I have seen. Ananya Panday is smartly utilized as Tia. Her inexperience as an actor suits her character in the film. Rajat Kapoor can camouflage himself into any role and he’s at it again as Jitesh, Zain’s business partner.

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And then there’s Naseeruddin Shah as Alisha’s father. There’s a thing about Naseer Saab talking to young actors as a father. There’s pain, agony, and at the same time grace and beauty. Remember his scene with Farhan Akhtar in Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara? In Gehraiyaan, I was waiting for that scene when he will face Deepika. And he recreated that magic in a scene or two.

Gehraiyaan is a brave film. It dives deep into places not many mainstream Hindi films go. I can’t remember a single moment where the makers were playing it safe. That’s commendable. Kudos to a star like Deepika too, to be a part of a film like this. The industry is run by stardom. All of us have worshipped stars. But the new brigade is willing to take risks. You will see in Gehraiyaan, there’s no starry air around Deepika. Some pretty nasty stuff is said to her character. Everyone from writers, director and actors are in service of the characters and story. There’s a lot to marvel in Gehraiyaan. Dive straight in to watch this one.