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Release
date:
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October 25, 2019
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Director:
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Mikhil
Musale
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Cast:
Language:
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Rajkummar Rao,
Boman Irani, Mouni Roy, Sumeet Vyas, Amyra Dastur, Gajraj Rao, Manoj Joshi,
Abhishek Banerjee, Paresh Rawal
Hindi
|
For a country that
is virtually a baby producing machine, we are oddly hesitant to talk about sex
outside our bedrooms, and there too, very often not.
It took Hindi
filmdom several decades to evolve beyond showing flowers and birds nudging
each other in parks as a stand-in for human couples. But in the past 10-plus
years, there has been a gradual attitudinal shift as Bollywood has finally
acknowledged that girls and boys take off their undergarments while, err,
doing the deed (Pyaar Ke Side
Effects, 2006), that some couples need sperm donors to help them conceive (Vicky Donor, 2012), that erectile
dysfunction is a thing (Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, 2017), women menstruate (Padman,
2018), women masturbate (Veere Di Wedding,
2018), sexual dysfunction and venereal disease are a thing too (Khandaani Shafakhana, 2019). Who knew
Bollywood had it in them?
The latest in the
tiny trickle of Hindi films with a plot pivoted on sex and sexuality
is the Rajkummar Rao-starrer Made In
China, based on the book of the same name by Parinda Joshi. Rao here plays
a Gujarati youngster forever on the lookout for a new business idea. Raghuveer
Mehta’s entrepreneurial efforts keep flopping, but he remains undeterred. Then
one day in China, he receives a proposal to market an aphrodisiac in India. The
catch is that its main ingredient is illegal.
Revise that: Raghu’s
primary challenge in this matter turns out not to be that he has to sell in the
grey market, but that his product occupies a grey market in the Indian
mindspace where taboo subjects are stashed away. This calls for ingenuity on
his part and leads to some comical and occasionally bizarre situations.
Before the film
gets to Raghu’s business experiments though, there is a death. That, in fact,
is how Made In China begins: there is
a death in Gujarat and the prime suspects are Raghu and his business partner,
the sexologist Dr Vardhi played by Boman Irani.
From the start, it
is evident that director Mikhil Musale is aiming at being a thriller with a
message and a certain whimsy. He gets his look and feel right with the aid of
some atmospheric production design, cinematographer Anuj Rakesh Dhawan’s moody,
low-lit frames, boisterous songs and a particularly memorable,
ominous zithery background sound that brings to mind buzzing
insects.
There are places at
which the narrative gets funny too. Very very funny. A scene in which Dr Vardhi
gives a sex talk to a conference of adults who were expecting something else is
an absolute hoot without once resorting to icky or immature double entendre.
But considering that Rao and Irani are in fine fettle here, Made In China surprisingly feels at all
times like a film that is about to lift off but never quite takes flight.
A large part of
this is due to the tonal and logical inconsistency in the narrative. There
is, for instance, no explanation for Raghu’s cheery attitude during his
interrogation by the investigating authorities, an off-kilter element that
particularly impacts Made In China
because it is a running thread throughout the film.
There is no explanation
either for why Raghu hides his latest business from his wife with whom we are
led to believe he has a close and non-traditional relationship. As evidence of
this, they have been shown swilling alcohol together, sharing a cigarette (both
points are very high on Bollywood’s list of Things Liberal Women Do) and
discussing her orgasms. She also supports him unflinchingly in the face of his
family’s contempt for his many failures. Yet somehow he is too ashamed to tell
her that he is producing and peddling an aphrodisiac, and her reaction when she
learns the truth ends up justifying his fears. If this is meant to be a comment
on the superficiality of contemporary liberalism, it is not convincing.
Made In China also drags in long
stretches. When Rao and Irani are not together on screen, the storytelling
lacks spark, which is disappointing considering that the supporting cast is
full of actors with proven talent. Even an overly-made-up,
forever-dressed-to-the-nines Mouni Roy as Raghu’s wife Rukmani brings a certain
panache to her performance, but how convincing can an actor be when her lavish
wardrobe and perfect face distract so completely from her claims of financial
struggles?
At one point, Raghu
gathers this wisdom from a character played by Paresh Rawal who ends up being
his business guru:
“The customer is a ch*****,” says the
man. The epithet is muted but since it is heard as often as prepositions and
conjunctions on the streets of north India, it is understood that viewers know
the word he repeatedly mouths and Raghu dutifully echoes – that’s part of the
joke, of course. It is tempting to play on their vocabulary and accuse Musale
of making a ch***** of his audience,
but that would be off the mark because there is an interesting concept
somewhere in this film that has been lost in execution.
Made In China fails to hit the bull’s eye because it
sorely needed an evening out of pace and tone, depth of characterisation
and detailing in the plotline. The best thing about it are Rao and Irani
who are a pleasure to watch even in this middling affair.
Rating (out
of five stars): **
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CBFC Rating (India):
|
UA
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Running time:
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130 minutes
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A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:
Photograph
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_In_China_(2019_film)
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