BOLLYWOOD’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS MARRIED ACTRESSES WHO ARE MOTHERS / COLUMN PUBLISHED ON BBC HINDI

(This is the English version of an article published on bbc.com/hindi/ on October 21, 2015.)

MOMS MUST BE MOMS BUT DADS WILL BE BOYS

Though Bollywood is marginally less resistant to married actresses now, it still insists on giving only certain kinds of roles to women post-marriage and post-motherhood

By Anna MM Vetticad

A decade back, chances are she would have been the hero’s or heroine’s mother. Today, she is the heroine herself.

As trade analysts collate the collections of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s Jazbaa, there is more to discuss than money. In an industry that is notoriously disinterested in women post-30, post-marriage and post-babies, Jazbaa – terribly flawed though it is – is a milestone of sorts. After all, how often does Bollywood give the central character in a mainstream film to a 41-year-old married actress returning after a five-year hiatus during which she had a child? This is particularly heartening, coming as it does after a then-49-year-old Sridevi hit the box-office bull’s eye with English Vinglish in 2012 following a 15-year break, and Madhuri Dixit had a moderate success with Dedh Ishqiya last year.

All three stories revolve around their female protagonists. There is a catch though. While an increasingly experimental Bollywood has become marginally less resistant to married actresses in the past decade, it still gives these women limited choices.

For instance, the industry seems determined that real-life mothers must play mothers on screen if they want to be leading ladies. Ash in Jazbaa, Sri in English Vinglish, Kajol in her post-baby films and Madhuri in Aaja Nachle have all been mums in roles that have given centrality to their motherhood. Dedh Ishqiya had an explanation for why Madhuri’s character was childless.

This is not to say that these have been inadequate roles or that on-screen motherhood is undesirable. Quite to the contrary. But where is the variety? Where are the frothy romances starring these actresses, the comedies or stories of feisty older women who are not married and not mothers?

Meanwhile, their male peers are picking from a range of genres and roles, singing and dancing as singletons and husbands, sometimes fathers but most often not, usually laughably younger than their real-life age and courting actresses two decades their junior. With older heroines though, care is taken that their characters match their real-life age, have significant gravitas and that actors around their age play their romantic partners.

Producers insist this is what viewers want. The truth though is they don’t give viewers an alternative, the biggest budgets are still earmarked for male-centric entertainers, major male stars usually don’t want to act with women even close to their age (49-year-old Shah Rukh Khan’s repeated pairing with Kajol, 41, being an exception) and the options offered to older actresses reflect Bollywood’s own narrow-mindedness.

The prevailing mindset is best illustrated by a conversation I had with director Deepak Shivdasani before the release of his film Yeh Raaste Hai Pyaar Ke (2001) starring Madhuri, Ajay Devgn and Preity Zinta. When I asked if Madhuri’s role in the film suited her stardom, he misunderstood. “Don’t worry,” he assured me, “I’ve given her a role that suits the dignity of a married woman.”

Fourteen years later, at least two critics last week felt the need to assure us in reviews that Aishwarya’s role in Jazbaa is “age appropriate”. Yet the press barely protests when men touching 50 play 20- and 30-somethings.

Well, Bollywood producers, writers, directors and journalists are not living in a social vacuum. Like the rest of us, they emerge from our patriarchal society that by and large believes marriage elevates a woman’s stature and expects wives to subordinate their dreams to their spouses’ and children’s needs. It goes without saying that in such an industry, women will have limited options.

They deserve more, but until they get it, every baby step Bollywood takes towards Aishwarya, Madhuri, Sridevi and their ilk is a step worth toasting.

(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

BBC Hindi link:

http://www.bbc.com/hindi/india/2015/10/151018_married_bollywood_heroine_tk?ocid=socialflow_twitter

Photograph courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aishwarya_Rai_Bachchan

Note: This photograph was not sourced from BBC Hindi

REVIEW 247: QUEEN

Release date:	March 7, 2014
Director:	Vikas Bahl
Cast: Language:	Kangna Ranaut, Lisa Haydon, Rajkumar Rao Hindi

And THIS, my dear Bollywood, is how it’s done!

Director Vikas Bahl’s Queen is a slap in the face of every Hindi filmmaker and analyst who continues to insist that women-centric films can’t be light-hearted entertainers; that socially conscious films can’t be fun; that “thoughtful” and “hilarious” are mutually exclusive qualities for films. It also comes as a relief to all those who’ve been waiting for Kangna Ranaut to deliver on the promise she showed when she first entered Bollywood. Playing Rani Mehra – a woman ditched at the altar by her obnoxiously controlling MCP fiancé – Ranaut pulls out all the stops to show us what a nuanced performer she can be, given the right role and director.

Queen’s Rani is an ultra-conservative young woman from Delhi’s Rajouri Garden, whose protected upbringing belies her family’s quiet liberalism that we discover as the film rolls along. When her fiancé Vijay (Rajkumar Rao) decides he’s too good for her just hours before their wedding, she is at first crushed but then decides to take off on her own on the honeymoon she had planned for both of them. For a woman whose family has rarely let her out of their sight until then, Paris-in-solitude followed by Amsterdam are more than mere adventures.

Far removed from the watchful gaze of her loved ones, the strictures of the demanding ex-fiance and the constraints of living among one’s own, Rani bonds with a kind-hearted and promiscuous half-Indian female hotel employee, befriends a multi-cultural trio of gentlemen, learns to take care of herself, discovers the difference between a protective buddy and a suffocating boyfriend, realises that men outside the family circle are not necessarily predators, meets male strangers who are more genuine than female kin, gets an inkling of the career she could have, and kisses a cute Italian. The scenarios are all so real, uniformly sweet, inspiring, comical and bereft of clichés, that we must doff a hat to all the writers involved: story and screenplay – Parveez Shaikh, Chaitally Parmar, Vikas Bahl himself; dialogues – Anvita Dutt, Kangna Ranaut. More than anything else, they must be lauded for not dictating definitions of liberalism and conservatism, and for the non-judgmental tone they adopt towards Rani’s friends in Europe, neither glorifying nor condemning their lifestyles, simply telling it like it is.

Although Queen travels the world with Rani, cinematographer Bobby Singh sticks to the mood of the film: instead of sweeping shots of the cities our heroine visits, he opts for intimate views of the spaces she occupies. Even the costume design by Rushi Sharma and Manoshi Nath is steeped in the subtlety that pervades the entire film. By the end of the story, Rani has acquired a sophistication that is not brought about by an overly dramatic alteration to her wardrobe (no, she does not jump from salwar suits to minuscule skirts); it comes from a shining inner confidence manifesting itself in marginal changes in her style.

At the centre of it all is Kangna Ranaut. As Rani swings between reticence and confidence, Ranaut communicates her character’s confusion and evolution in a manner that’s astoundingly sincere, effective and low-key. Her face has always managed to convey subtle emotions. The thick-voiced dialogue delivery that has been the bane of her performances so far has improved greatly. That voice gives way just once in this film, in a scene in Amsterdam when she yells at Vijay. This is, without a doubt, Ranaut’s most well-written and well-acted role till date.

Casting directors Atul Mongia and Parita Mandalia have picked actors for the smaller parts too with attention to detail. Rajkumar Rao gets limited screen time yet manages to dig his heels into the role of Vijay, a man in love yet too selfish to rise above his patriarchal mindset for the woman he loves. Model Lisa Haydon is a revelation as the other Vijay in Rani’s life, or rather, Vijaylakshmi the hotel staffer who guides Rani through her time in Paris. What a sparkling performance, Ms Haydon. Vijaylakshmi’s interactions with Rani also give us that rare instance of girl bonding in a Bollywood film.

Of the bit-part players, it’s hard not to be charmed by sweet-looking Mich Boyko as the graffiti artist in Amsterdam or to be drawn to Marco Canadea’s emotional, arrogant, over-wrought, attractive Italian chef. It would have been nice to know just that tad bit more though about Guithob Joseph’s musician Tim, especially because black actors are rarely seen in Hindi films (Bollywood’s idea of “foreigners” tends to be white folk) but that’s a wish, not a grievance. The film’s only truly false note comes from the Muslim prostitute in Amsterdam whose heavily Urdu-laden dialogues seem to flow awkwardly off her tongue.

Vikas Bahl earlier co-directed Chillar Party, which was nice in parts but so-so elsewhere.  Queen, on the other hand, is a thoroughly accomplished film. Bahl’s understanding of a woman’s psyche is so remarkable, it’s as if Rituparno Ghosh has been reborn. Queen is what EnglishVinglish might have been if Sridevi’s character had discovered herself before marriage. Come to think of it, how lovely it would be to get a Queen II or an English Vinglish II in which Rani Mehra and Shashi Godbole become fast friends. That’s an aside for the future. In the here and now though, there’s Queen: a delightfully funny, sensitive, small, simple-but-not-simplistic film about coming of age past the age when most people get to do that. In a sense, it’s a sign that Bollywood too is coming of age. Queen is a royal triumph.

Rating (out of five): **** (stars out of 5)

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	151 minutes

Photographs courtesy: bollywoodtrade.com

THE annavetticadgoes2themovies AWARDS - BEST HINDI FILMS, 2012 :)

My favourite Hindi film released in 2012 is not on this list. That’s because it’s a documentary, and since there are so few of those that come to our theatres, I thought it made sense to restrict this list to fiction features alone. It’s crucial though to celebrate the fact that Faiza Ahmad Khan’s heart-warming docu-feature Supermen of Malegaon actually managed to get a release in mainstream halls. The breakthrough came courtesy PVR’s pioneering Director’s Rare initiative – launched in late 2011 – for which no praise is too much. The release of SoM was just one among the many interesting new developments in Indian cinema in the year gone by.

2012 was a good year for Bollywood in particular … a year in which the lines between mainstream and offbeat were further blurred with films like Gangs of Wasseypur 1&2 and Vicky Donor; when the film industry’s assumptions about the box-office prospects of heroine-centric projects were further challenged by Kahaani and even English Vinglish; when Paan Singh Tomar ended up as an unexpected hit, hopefully sending a message to its producers who kept it in the cans for too long after it was ready; a year in which cash continued to flow into the industry’s coffers despite the challenges facing the Indian economy. Yes, there are many bad films still being made, sexism still prospers and there’s more clever strategy & PR involved in the fabled “Rs 100 crore club” than film makers would like you to know, but there’s also more good news than bad. Some of the good news is contained in this list of the Best Hindi Films released in 2012:  

My Best Film #1: OMG Oh My God!

Gutsy as hell … that’s director Umesh Shukla’s OMG Oh My God! It’s the story of Kanjilal Mehta (Paresh Rawal) who sues god when his antique shop is destroyed in an earthquake and his insurance claim is rejected because earthquakes fall within the category of “act of god” as defined in the policy’s fine print. Based on the Hindi play Kishen vs Kanhaiya and the Australian film The Man Who Sued God, OMG combines gravitas with great humour to question the existence of god and slam the commercialisation of religion in India. Rawal is gorgeous, as is Mithun Chakraborty irreverently spoofing a famous real-life guru. Akshay Kumar – the film’s surprise package – is charmingly under-stated, making you wonder why the star short-changes his talent by largely confining himself to loud comedies. The production values should have been better, but all is forgiven in the light of Team OMG’s immense courage in a country where violence-prone religious bodies are constantly on the prowl with “sentiments” ever ready to be “hurt”. That the Censors cleared this film is a heartening sign of changing times. That no bigot called for a ban is not merely a miracle; it’s also proof that when a film’s PR managers want to avoid controversy, they usually can. Smoothly written and smartly directed, OMG is a quiet triumph for Indian cinema and society.

**** (For the original review of OMG Oh My God! click here)

My Best Film #2: Kahaani

Bollywood rarely makes good thrillers... Bollywood is sexist... Bollywood’s idea of a “woman-centric” project is rona-dhona and hard-core social issues... All true. Now turn all this on its head, and you get Kahaani. Directed impeccably by Sujoy Ghosh with a story by Ghosh & Advaita Kala, the film takes us to Kolkata where the very very pregnant Vidya Bagchi arrives, in search of her missing husband. Why does no one remember Arnab Bagchi? The answer comes in an excellently executed climax, but the beauty of Kahaani is that there’s so much more to it than just the wonderful suspense. Every tiny character has been so well-etched-out, every actor so well cast, every part so well played, that you come away from the film remembering not just the three leads - Vidya Balan’s spirited Ms Bagchi, the immensely cute Parambrata Chattopadhyay’s kindly policeman Satyaki and Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s hard-nosed Intelligence official Khan. You also come away remembering the likes of Saswata Chatterjee playing the spooky hitman Bob Biswas although he barely gets a few minutes of screen time. Who would have thought that MCP Bollywood could give us a strong-willed heroine in an advanced stage of pregnancy as a metaphor for feminine resilience? Who would have thought MCP Bollywood could portray a woman with a baby bump as an object of romantic desire? Team Kahaani tujhe salaam!  

**** (For the original review of Kahaani, click here)

My Best Film #3: English Vinglish

“Like two drops of coffee on a cloud of milk…” Of all the words used over the years for Sridevi’s beautiful eyes, none have been more apt than this description by a character in English Vinglish. This low-key film marked the smashing comeback of the country’s most successful pan-India, multi-lingual superstar, 15 years after she hung up her boots for marriage and motherhood. Sridevi is flawless as the film’s Indian housewife who has for years faced derision from her husband and daughter because she is not fluent in English. The language divide is representative of much else. This is a gently nuanced film about the need for respect in relationships, about how wives and mothers get taken for granted by husbands and children, about how men tend to believe their work is more significant than their spouse’s, about a woman learning to respect herself without the need for affirmation from others. The under-stated writing is complemented by Sridevi and the strong supporting cast that includes Adil Hussain playing her husband and French actor Mehdi Nebbou who gets to paint that memorable picture of her eyes. Debutant director Gauri Shinde – so evidently not in awe of her awesome heroine – is one of the big discoveries of 2012.

***1/2  (For the original review of English Vinglish, click here)

My Best Film #4: Vicky Donor

Imagine a film about a sperm donor in the hands of the Farrelly Brothers or Sajid Khan or Rohit Shetty! Oh dear! Now thank your stars for director Shoojit Sircar. With Sircar at the helm, Vicky Donor ends up as an intelligent satire on sperm donors, with a canvas covering infertility, adoption, mixed marriages, family and our stress-ridden modern lives. VJ Ayushmann Khurana makes an assured debut as the titular hero and his lady love is played by the pretty and talented model-actress Yami Gautam. The two are blessed with a formidable supporting cast that includes Annu Kapoor as the owner of a financially strapped infertility clinic and Kamlesh Gill as Vicky’s remarkably liberal grandmother. Juhi Chaturvedi’s writing is at the heart of this funny yet emotional film. Though the action revolves around the hero, the highlight of the film is his strong bond with the three very strong women in his life – mom, grandmom, wife – and the immense respect he has for them. Thrown into the mix are some hilarious interactions between the hero’s out-and-out Punjabi family and the heroine’s all-Bengali clan, good music and John Abraham’s well-muscled bare chest in the Rum rum rum rum rum song. The result: a pathbreaking, thought-provoking, highly entertaining film. Vicky Donor marks Abraham’s debut as a producer. Ah, a hot guy with a vision!

***1/2  (For the original review of Vicky Donor, click here) 

My Best Film #5: Paan Singh Tomar

Based on the true story of an international-level Indian athlete compelled by circumstances to become a dacoit, Paan Singh Tomar is the sort of film that could make all Indians hang their heads in shame. Irrfan plays Tomar, an army jawan with a bottomless pit for a stomach who takes to running for reasons other than a love of sports. Tomar retires to manage home affairs but picks up the gun when an apathetic establishment scoffs at his contribution to the country and fails to protect his family. The actor gives the character an irresistible raw charm in a way that only Irrfan can, but goes beyond even what we’ve come to expect of him by rising up most remarkably to the physical challenges of playing an athlete. His performance is complemented by Sandeep Chowta’s disturbing background score and cinematographer Aseem Mishra’s haunting no-frills take on the Chambal. Director Tigmanshu Dhulia has had some experience in the genre since he was earlier associated with Bandit Queen. Some of the supporting characters in Paan Singh Tomar could have been better fleshed out, and the denouement is not entirely convincing, but Dhulia still deserves to be ranked as one of the most multi-faceted, richest talents of the year gone by with his performance in Gangs of Wasseypur 1&2 and his helmsmanship of this heart-breaking film.

***1/2  

My Best Film #6: Harud

This is a stark film that rises above the usual partisan voices we hear speaking up for Kashmir. Aamir Bashir’s Harud (Autumn) is about an entire generation of Kashmiri Muslims who have grown up without knowing what it is to live alongside Kashmiri Pandits; it’s about the state after the exodus of its Hindus driven away by militancy; it’s about the all-pervading presence of the Army and mind-numbing tension in the lives of the Muslims left behind; it’s about the everydayness of bunkers and guns in the state; it’s about how the gloom of the Kashmiri autumn mirrors the seeming hopelessness of the situation the people face; it’s about one family struggling to cope with a missing son and a father descending into depression. The wonderful cast consists primarily of non-actors and amateurs, many drawn from a workshop held in the state by Naseeruddin Shah. They stand shoulder to shoulder with Iranian thespian Reza Naji (Children of Heaven) who plays a traffic policeman driven to mental illness, as many people in the state have been in reality. Debutant director Aamir Bashir is a confident storyteller. His team-up with cinematographer Shanker Raman, production designer Rakesh Yadav and sound designer Nakul Kamte gives us a Kashmir far removed from the picture-postcard prettiness that Bollywood romances prefer. Bashir’s Kashmir is grey, grim…and still gorgeous.    

***1/2 (For the original review of Harud, click here)

My Best Film #7: Shanghai

Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai is about the maze of connections that nurture the country’s corrupt political system. So Indian is the treatment of the story that it’s hard to believe it’s based on the novel Z by Greek writer Vassilis Vassilikos which was made into the award-winning film by Costa Gavras. Well it is, and Shanghai is one of the many films of the past couple of years that comes as proof that Bollywood is gradually moving away from its penchant for plagiarism; and is increasingly legitimately purchasing the rights to adapt films and literary works that catch its fancy. But that’s not the only cause for celebration that this film gives us. There’s the fact that it’s darned good. Shanghai is set in an Indian state where the ruling party has staked its future on an International Business Park in the midst of protests against the resulting displacement of the poor in the name of development. With the exception of the uni-tone Kalki Koechlin playing a pro-poor activist, the rest of the cast deliver well on their well-written roles. The pick of the lot is Emraan Hashmi (yes, Serial Kisser Hashmi) in a career-best performance as a porn film cameraman whose friend becomes collateral damage in a hidden political war. Shanghai takes its time to draw you in, but once that happens, it’s hard not to be hooked.

***1/2 (For the original review of Shanghai, click here)

My Best Film #8: Chakravyuh

Director Prakash Jha’s Chakravyuh is an indictment of the police-politician-industry nexus that indirectly nurtures the country’s Maoist problem. The film stars Arjun Rampal playing straight-as-an-arrow policeman Adil Khan, struggling to cope with rebellious locals, a weak-willed senior, corrupt political bosses, manipulative businessmen and a friend who has gone over to the other side. Abhay Deol plays that friend Kabir, who initially infiltrates the Maoists as Adil’s informant, but ends up so moved by the plight of the poor and their guardians, so disillusioned by police atrocities, that he joins the movement. The screenplay is not without its failings – we really did need to know more about Adil and Kabir’s friendship before they became professional collaborators, and the Maoists in the film are too one-dimensional to be compelling. But the pace of the proceedings is so unrelenting, the machinations of the film’s netas and industrialists are so exhausting, and the film’s amoral policemen are so coolly callous, that Adil’s frustrations and helplessness are almost tangible. It’s also interesting that the hero has an overtly Muslim name but the script does not make a song-and-dance about his religion, which is unusual for Bollywood. After Raajneeti’s affectations and Aarakshan’s sermonising, it’s a joy to have Jha back in the groove.

***1/2  (For the original review of Chakravyuh, click here)

My Best Film #9: Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1

Gangs of Wasseypur 1 is the first of a 2-part film by director Anurag Kashyap about an inter-family gang war in Dhanbad (today’s Jharkhand). GoW 1 takes us to the root of this battle, which is Sardar Khan’s hatred for mafioso Ramadhir Singh. The blood-letting in the film is unending, as are the sexual appetites of these gangsters who turn into simpering idiots in the presence of their wives and girlfriends. The towering strength of those women, an unexpected sense of humour in the midst of all that gore and Sneha Khanwalkar’s rustic music are among the many pluses of this film about the pointlessness of violence. The big minus is the initial portion that introduces us to a multiplicity of characters, some played by two actors to account for the passage of time, that feels somewhat like a confusing history lesson. Once the film gathers steam though, there’s little time for thought or even the drawing of a breath, as the cycle of killings goes on and on and on. GoW1 brings together Bollywood’s Best Ensemble Cast of 2012. Richa Chadda, Reemma Sen, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Piyush Mishra, Huma Qureshi, Manoj Bajpayee, Jaideep Ahlawat … If I were an acting student, I’d chant those names from GoW1 off a rosary every day!

***1/4  (For the original review of Gangs of Wasseypur 1, click here)

My Best Film #10: Maximum

Yeh sheher jagah toh deta hai, lekin apnaata nahin hai, says a politician in Maximum to a young journalist from UP. That’s a courageous statement for any Bollywood film to make in this era of Raj Thackeray’s violence-prone, North Indian-hating Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Director Kabeer Kaushik’s Maximum takes many more such stances through its story of the life-long, career-defining rivalry between two corrupt Mumbai policemen. Sonu Sood delivers an excellent performance – as always – as Pratap Pandit, the suave young encounter specialist with a roving eye. Veteran Naseeruddin Shah, playing his older rival Arun Inaamdar, seems more involved in this film than he usually is these days. Threading its way through their bitter competitiveness is the builder-underworld-politician-police nexus of Maximum’s Maharashtra. With Amit Sadh’s journalist, the film even steers clear of Bollywood clichés of mediapersons as either saintly or satanic. This is an otherwise extremely well-written film with one unfortunate flaw: the failure to explore Inaamdar’s character in as much detail as it acquaints us with Pandit. Still, with its gripping narrative and lovely music, Maximum is entertaining in a quiet sort of way ... and a good example of a fine film killed by poor publicity.

*** (For the original review of Maximum, click here)

My Best Film #10: Barfi!

True, the Internet is still abuzz with charges of plagiarism against Anurag Basu’s Barfi! Some of the criticism is justified (for instance, the scene in which Ileana D’Cruz’s mother takes her for a drive to show her the man she once loved is an embarrassing copy from The Notebook); some of it fails to appreciate the place of tributes in cinema (the Buster Keaton-inspired ladder scene and the Chaplinesque sequences are too widely recognised to be anything but homages); and some of the criticism is downright silly (one blogger went so far as to cite the scene in which Priyanka Chopra lies down next to a dying Ranbir Kapoor as a lift from The Notebook. Oh c’mon! So that’s not a scene that’s appeared in a zillion films, TV serials and real life?). Still, even over-reactions are understandable considering all these years of dishonesty by Bollywood and Basu’s own questionable track record in this matter. The debate notwithstanding, Barfi! is still that rare Hindi film that gives us a romance between two differently abled people without pity or condescension or teary-eyed melodrama. It’s a deliberately light-hearted telling of the relationship between a deaf-mute Murphy (Ranbir, excellent!) and the autistic Jhilmil (Priyanka, brilliant!). The unnecessary switch to thriller mode somewhere along the way and the overly elongated second half don’t alter the fact that Barfi’s positivity is pathbreaking for Bollywood. Wonderful music, locations and cinematography add to the package. A very moving film.   

***  

My Best Film #10: Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu

An unusual buddy movie about boy-girl bonding and that eternal question: can two people of the opposite sex be friends without falling in love? The answer comes to us in a completely unconventional, completely un-Bollywood-like ending that goes well with the undramatic tone of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu. Riana Braganza is a hairstylist who does as she pleases and could bring sunshine to the darkest corner of the earth. The somber Rahul Kapoor hates being an architect but wouldn’t dare defy the expectations of his rich, uncaring father. They meet, they become friends, he grows up, they get closer. Imran Khan as Rahul is charming, but the scene-stealer here – not unexpectedly – is the charismatic Kareena Kapoor who accomplishes the difficult task of making the free-spirited Riana sufficiently unlike Jab We Met’s Geet, ensuring that EMAET does not give us a sense of déjà vu. In keeping with her performance, subtlety is the highlight of director Shakun Batra’s film in which the Hindu-Christian angle is not rubbed in our faces in the interests of secularism and there’s a passing mention of Riana being a year or two older than Rahul, without a huge deal being made of that either. Simple yet not simplistic, EMAET is a gently entertaining film.

*** (For the original review of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, click here)

(Photograph credits are listed with the reviews of individual films to which links have been provided above)