REVIEW 771: SHUBH MANGAL ZYADA SAAVDHAN

Release date:	February 21, 2020
Director:	Hitesh Kewalya
Cast:	Ayushmann Khurrana, Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta, Gajraj Rao, Sunita Rajwar, Manu Rishi Chadha, Maanvi Gagroo, Cameo: Bhumi Pednekar
Language:	Hindi

It has been a long time coming. 

From the pre-2000 decades when LGBT+ persons were almost always (almost, but not always) written purely as objects of either derision or comedy by Bollywood scriptwriters, to this week’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (SMZS); from an earlier era when comparatively sensitive Hindi filmmakers packed their works with subliminal messaging about same-sex love, to the post-2000 era’s intermittent open declarations; from the days when the homosexual relationships in My Brother Nikhil (2005) and I Am (2011) were assumed to be of niche interest by producers, distributors and exhibitors, to the present day when glamorous mainstream stars have been cast as same-sex lovers in films bearing all the trappings of mainstream commercial Bollywood such as Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019) and SMZS, it has been a long long time coming.

Bollywood in 2020 is far from being a jannat, orthodox masses still seem to need comedy as a package for a sensitive reality, and at a couple of  places, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (Be Extra Wary of Marriage) does make apologetic noises to traditionalists. Still, from a time when audiences were conditioned to assume that songs like Yeh dosti hum nahin thodenge (We will not break this friendship) were about platonic male buddies, to today when SMZS is questioning those assumptions, Bollywood has come a long way, baby.

Ayushmann Khurrana stars in writer-director Hitesh Kewalya’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan as Kartik, a young man living in Delhi and in a committed relationship with Aman (Jitendra Kumar, listed for some reason as Jeetu in the closing credits here). The two are not out to their families. When they travel to Aman’s hometown, Allahabad, for a wedding, relatives go berserk on accidentally discovering that they are a couple in love. SMZS is devoted to how Kartik and Aman come to terms with this rejection and how the family comes to terms with their truth.

Kewalya’s film is an intelligently handled affair. It is hilarious, but it never mocks the two gay men at the centre of the story. Its laughter is reserved entirely for the prejudice they encounter and the straitjacketed existence of those around them who are determined to preserve their notion of “normal”, even if that “normal” has sucked the joy out of their own lives. SMZS’s sense of humour does occasionally slip up for other reasons (example: that really flat joke about Neil Nitin Mukesh), but at no point does its comedy turn homophobic.

With a word here and and a touch there, through long conversations and fleeting references, Kewalya invites us into his questioning mind and shows a deeper understanding of human relations, gender, Hindu mythology and popular culture than most mainstream Hindi filmmakers. In 2014, when I was working on a feature about the history of LGBT+ portrayals in Bollywood, Ruth Vanita, co-editor with Salim Kidwai of the book Same-Sex Love In India, had told me that when she showed Hindi films featuring the old-style intense yaari-dosti between male leads to her students at the University of Montana, “all of them commented on the fact that the men are singing romantic songs to each other like Diye jalte hai (from Namak Haram) and the songs from Dosti. If you played those songs without knowing that a man is singing to a man, it sounds like a man is singing to a woman...” (For more on that, click here.)

Like Vanita, Kewalya repeatedly asks us to step outside ourselves and consider the possibility of messaging, including coded messaging, featured in art works and mythological motifs we have long loved but seen with different eyes in the past.

SMZS’s intelligence extends to its acting. Khurrana and Kumar are not bound by any of the traits formulaic Bollywood has so far compulsorily assigned to gay men. Khurrana does tweak his body language to play Kartik, but those changes are barely discernable and in no way stereotypical or caricaturish in keeping with Bollywood conventions.

Aman’s relatives, played by the phenomenal Neena Gupta, Gajraj Rao, Sunita Rajwar, Manu Rishi Chadha and Maanvi Gagroo, perfectly capture various shades of bias and acceptance to be found in families that are weighed down by social conditioning and ignorance, not hate.

In the midst of this carefully chosen cast, Bhumi Pednekar appears incongruous, not for any fault of hers but because of what her brief appearance in the narrative signifies. The lovely Ms Pednekar was the heroine of the 2017 Bollywood hit Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (with screenplay and dialogues by Kewalya) in which she had a solid role alongside Khurrana. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan has no plot connection to the previous film, the title merely cashes in on that one’s recall value. It is telling then that the producers felt comfortable revisiting the name while dispensing with the leading lady, instead of establishing a new brand. As it happens, this is customary in the world of Bollywood franchises and sequels. Obviously Pednekar’s cameo here is a bow to the success of Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, but her role is written almost like a spare tyre lying unused, it is embarrassingly insignificant (a cameo need not be) and forgettable, and it is an unfortunate reminder of the continuing dispensability of women stars in this male-star-obsessed industry.

Repeat: Bollywood is far from being a jannat of progressiveness. It is up to viewers to decide whether to see the glass as half full or half empty. There is a third option: we could celebrate forward movement and yet draw attention to missteps and steps yet to be taken.

SMZS falters during a scene in which Aman’s mother laments her husband’s unwillingness to fight for her son, but simultaneously criticises her son for – so she says – expecting his family to evolve overnight. This monologue is designed as an expression of empathy, so it has to be placed on the record that marginalised social groups do not owe it to dominant groups to break them in gently. Individuals may CHOOSE to do so for strategic reasons or out of love and affection, but no one has a right to demand it.

Whether this scene is a mark of the writer’s own sub-conscious conservatism or a safety net spread out with commercial compulsions in mind is hard to tell. It is troubling though, as is the odd emphasis on how homosexual relations ought to be private during a TV news announcement about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that earlier criminalised same-sex relations. This moment in the film would perhaps pacify conservatives who seem to have this bizarre expectation that anyone who is not heterosexual wants nothing more than to have sex in public. Perhaps that is why it is there.

Hopefully these aberrations will find mention among the many conversations SMZS will spark off. That it will spark off conversations is a given. This is, after all, no ordinary film raising ordinary questions, as is evident early on when two characters dwell on how a father’s sole contribution to creating a child is his  sperm. One of them adds that a child spends an entire lifetime repaying the debt of that single sperm. So you see, SMZS’s courage lies not just in its condemnation of homophobia, but also in its questioning of the very foundation of the Indian patriarchal family structure which rests on the belief that children owe parents a debt of gratitude for having made them/us.

SMZS is funny, brave, smart and thoughtful, and Kewalya is a voice worth listening to.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3.5

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	119 minutes 37 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/shubh-mangal-zyada-saavdhan-movie-review-ayushmann-khurrana-starrer-crosses-a-new-frontier-for-lgbt-portrayals-by-bollywood-8070971.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubh_Mangal_Zyada_Saavdhan

REVIEW 521: SHUBH MANGAL SAAVDHAN

Release date:	September 1, 2017
Director:	R.S. Prasanna
Cast: Language:	Bhumi Pednekar, Ayushmann Khurrana, Seema Pahwa, Neeraj Sood, Supriya Shukla, Chittaranjan Tripathy, Brijendra Kala, Anshul Chauhan    Hindi

                                                                                                                   

One of Shubh Mangal Saavdhan’s achievements is that although, on the face of it, it visits territory familiar to both its lead stars – Bhumi Pednekar and Ayushmann Khurrana – it has its own distinct identity.

Khurrana debuted playing a professional sperm donor in 2012’s Vicky Donor in which Shoojit Sircar did not generate a single icky moment from a subject that a lesser director might have taken down an icky road. The actor has been mastering the art of playing a repressed middle-class boy through 2015’s sleeper hit Dum Laga Ke Haisha – which happened to be the sprightly Pednekar’s maiden film – and Bareilly Ki Barfi, which was released a fortnight back. Vicky Donor dealt with intimate bodily concerns, so do Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (SMS) and Pednekar’s second film, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, which too is currently in theatres. She too has acquired her own M.A. in playing feisty women in a conservative milieu through her three films.

Add to this the fact that Seema Pahwa, who plays the heroine’s mother here is also the heroine’s mom in Bareilly Ki Barfi, and it is easy to see how SMS might have acquired a been-there-seen-that feel. Like I said, it is to the director and cast’s credit that they give their film a stamp of individuality in so many ways, that five minutes into its running time, fresh memories of toilets and barfis fly out of the window.

SMS is the story of an engaged couple in the National Capital Region who learn that the boy suffers from erectile dysfunction (ED). While the first half is devoted to how Mudit and Sugandha discover the problem in the months leading up to their wedding, the second is about the search for a solution and its effect on their relationship.

That an Indian storyteller might consider ED an issue because it would deny a woman sexual pleasure in her marriage – and not merely because of the social pressure she will inevitably face to beget heirs carrying forward her husband’s family line – is reason enough to sit up and take notice. That he wants us to view sex as a means to express love and affection between the partners involved, and not merely as a function performed to make babies (or for that matter, not as an instrument of physical satisfaction alone), is such an interesting turn of events.

Even when the conservatism of Mudit’s family threatens to tear them apart, it is evident that writer-director R.S. Prasanna sees Sugandha and Mudit as equal partners. Even though SMS is an out-and-out comedy, it is clear that Prasanna does not consider their intimacy a frivolous pursuit. Frankly, this man’s refreshingly different attitude to life is spelt out from the opening moment of the film when SMS gives us something you rarely ever get in commercial Indian cinema: a female voiceover and the introduction of the heroine before the hero.

SMS is a remake of the Tamil film Kalyana Samayal Saadham which starred Lekha Washington and Prasanna. The original and SMS are both directed by R.S. Prasanna. He also wrote the original. The screenplay and dialogues for the Hindi film have been written by Hitesh Kewalya who manages to neatly capture the environment in which the film is set while also flirting with sexual innuendo at places without ever getting crude.

The first half of SMS is a complete riot, yet manages to evoke stirring passages of emotion between the two leads. From their initial meeting, to the manner in which they get past the hurdles involved in courtship in a society where a direct and open expression of interest in a person of the opposite sex is frowned upon, a woman is expected never to make the first move and a decent man must therefore find ways to approach a woman he likes without being a stalker or a lech; from their shy shot at having sex one night when they get her house all to themselves, to Sugandha’s mother’s effort to drive home the virtues of virginity to her daughter, and the bride’s calculating yet affectionate chachu, everything is designed to have viewers rolling in the aisles with laughter even while driving home the point it wishes to make. And Prasanna succeeds on both counts.

Pednekar and Khurrana are so sweet together and separately, that I wanted to reach out and hug them throughout. She, with less experience, performs as if she was born to live before the camera. That they are good actors is a given. This film further serves to establish that they are a shubh jodi on screen, and could well be our new Deepti Naval-Farooq Sheikh combination.

In one scene, Mudit tells his fiancee that he ate “onion” kulchas earlier in the day. In another, he refers to his “resumé”. I loved how Khurrana mispronounces both words – with seeming effortlessness – without turning his character into a caricature. I loved too that the film is not condescending in its gaze on the people of its chosen setting.

Of the supporting cast, Seema Pahwa and Neeraj Sood playing Sugandha’s parents get the benefit of the best-written characters, and return the favour with scintillating performances. 

Though Mudit’s Mum and Dad are not examined as closely by the screenplay, Supriya Shukla and Chittaranjan Tripathy too have their sparkling moments. The only other supporting players who are written with any depth are Sugandha’s eccentric uncle (played by Brijendra Kala) and her best friend Ginni (Anshul Chauhan) – both actors are just fantastic.

This being middle class India where everyone in your extended family and neighbourhood has an opinion about the most private details of your existence, and where “bachche kab karoge?” (when will you have children?) is a question people ask even virtual strangers without any qualms, of course after a point Mudit’s troubles become a talking point in the entire biraadari. When the narrative reaches this place, it falters, getting carried away with its hyperbole.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

This is one of the reasons why the post-interval portion of SMS is much weaker than its opening half. The other reason is that after a while, the team seems not entirely sure how to handle the complexities of their theme while sustaining the humour. At this point, substance gets sacrificed in favour of absurdity, loudness is used to cover up lack of layering, and an exploration of the Sugandha-Mudit equation is replaced by frenzied activity on screen. Enter: a clumsily handled guest appearance by Jimmy Sheirgill, and the insertion of Mudit’s touchy-feely ex in the picture, the only purpose this irritating creature serves being to keep us informed that the boy did manage to do it in the past.

(Spoiler alert ends)

Criminally, too, SMS is casually ignorant in its discussion on erectile dysfunction, dismissing ED with a wave of the hand as a condition driven purely by psychology. Performance anxiety is just one of many reasons that could spark off ED in a man, and it is inexcusable that a purportedly sincere film would spread further falsehoods about a subject that is already so mired in misinformation in this country.

The standard reaction to such criticism is to say, “C’mon yaar, this is not a documentary, it is a fiction feature.” Yes, yaaaaar, but A Beautiful Mind and Rain Man were not documentaries, yet they gave us deep insights into schizophrenia and autism respectively. And before anyone responds further with, “C’mon yaar, but SMS is a comedy,” let me add, yaaaaar, that I can recall scene after scene in Rain Man that were comical, yet the film was not uninformed.

SMS’ lacunae though, surface only in the second half, by which time the mood is so firmly set, that half the battle has been won. Among the many things to recommend this film are the lightness of touch in the songs (written and composed by Tanishk-Vayu) and in DoP Anuj Rakesh Dhawan’s take on the NCR and Haridwar sans mandatory visits to famous landmarks – what Dhawan gives us instead, for the most part, are narrow streets in congested residential colonies, crowded public roads, small middle-class homes and a sparing use of long shots while he is at it, which goes well with the film’s endearing lack of pretensions to grandeur or a large scale. (For the record, FYI, SMS was shot on location in Delhi, Gurgaon, Haridwar, Rishikesh and Mumbai, in addition to a Mumbai studio.)

Shubh Mangal Saavdhan then is super-fun till it gets superficial. It is, to borrow the tagline of another film now in theatres, sundar, susheel and risky in its first half, flails about in the second, but remains entertaining overall. Handle it with care and alertness.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	105 minutes 25 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/shubh-mangal-saavdhan-movie-review-ayushmann-bhumis-film-travels-from-super-fun-to-superficial-3996161.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/ShubhMangalSaavdhanTheFilm/