Dil Dhadakne Do - A different Re-view

Zoya's 2^nd {"Beautiful Millionaires in Spain" (ZNMD)} film’s sequel "Gorgeous Millionaires on Titanic" (DDD) debuts Aamir Khan as Pluto the dog. He's the only dog; rest of the cast is a fierce bitch, gender notwithstanding.

This film’s script is a dream come true for Bollywood blue blood stars. It needed no acting whatsoever. They simply had to be what they’re off screen: fit-rich-&-troubled.

Anyone in India who can read & sparingly speak English has already watched the film so I know you’ve too. I’ll spare you the traditional script analysis blah blah.

Let’s talk about the chic, the director.

I know the movie didn’t burn down the box office; it still made everyone involved richer & cockier. Everyone who can ‘speak’ has been fawning over Zoya on being the biggest & the most progressive female director in Hindi film space. She must be flying like a bird on hallucinating drugs.

Now if you aren’t making out and/or whatzapping simultaneously you’d have noticed I italicised the word progressive. Its association with Zoya’s film bothers me.

Perhaps I’m some maverick who doesn’t understand the world & how it operates, but dear lord what on earth makes you think DDD is progressive.

On the contrary it is the scariest, depressingly regressive film. The trouble here is unlike Salman films this one pretends to be ground-breaking. The veneer is too fine to hold up even for five minutes. One close inspection of the plot, circumstances & characters reveal predictable hollowness.

Regressive father (Kapoor) screwing anyone other than his wife & selling his son to save his business. He stops considering his daughter as family the moment she’s expensively sent off to another home at Bidaai.

Business-genius self-made daughter is in a loveless marriage, only to wake from stupor and yell ‘divorce-divorce’ upon the arrival of ex-love-of-her-life. She had earlier abandoned him as she was in a sprinting hurry to marry someone random, anyone. But why? Ji, Zoya ne bataya hi nahi.

Sasu maa asks bahu ‘toh problem kya hai’ when bahu demands divorce on the grounds of lack of love. Haan, toh problem kya hai.

Mother is too weak-&-jobless to leave her philandering hubby who has ‘forgotten’ her. Her story echoes with all the ladies in the film. No wonder the funniest & saddest line of the film is when Priyanka asks the ladies to stop gossiping & get a damn job. One of them responds, representing all “pagal ho gayi hai, hume kaun job dega?” Everyone laughs: audience & all inside the 70mm screen.

Ain't it regressive for a foreign-educated, women's rights advocating girl to live off someone else’s money, husband or else.

Then there’s the most regressive of all: love at first sight. Fact check: Superstar Rajesh Khanna fell in love with Dimple as first sight (of cleavage) & proposed her to marry. She accepted, stupidly. Everyone knows how that fairytale crashed. Khanna screwed everyone he could, till he could. Like Kapoor does in film, showcasing this is the world we live in.

Would Ranveer have fallen in love with Anushka had she looked like Farah Khan? And when she eventually starts to look like Farah in years to come. How will Ranveer be any different to his father?

Ranveer’s thing fell in lust with the ‘edible thing’ who was swimming like an Olympian & resembling a calendar model. They even nail each other via eyes; audience drooled in jealousy. Guess who didn’t?....K....we’ll come back to that.

Absurdly, it is Ranveer’s character that stands out for me. He's laid-back, endearing & mastikhor. Apart from the regressive falling in lust at first bite, his character & portrayal is smooth as blue label. He makes the film worth the weekday ticket prices.

All the songs make you suicidal barring Pehli Baar. Anushka & Ranveer make the song come alive with uninhibited dancing & making love.

Priyanka rises in couple of scenes given her scope, like all other actors, is limited across the film. Farhan sizzles at arrival & fizzles as he’s reduced to a prop. Anil is path breaking only by mediocre Bollywood standards. Shefali is solid, but under-sketched. Aamir’s Pluto starts with me going “wow” & ends with “whatever.”

Anushka must have been drugged to sign for this role. It blows.

Let’s talk about Money, the star of the film. Like all others, money too has been short-changed by the filmmaker’s myopic view.

Money fetches us superficial things like status, private planes, & the ability to throw the grandest bash. Money may seem shallow but it isn’t, we are.

Money gives us is an opportunity to exposure to varied cultures, to true education leading to broader mind-sets. Eventually freeing us from the stereotypes & giving us the freedom to follow our dreams without crushing someone else's.

There is something else I take away from the film, something fantastically progressive. Ironically it doesn’t come from the script. Remember, I spoke of it earlier, oh you were uploading selfies on FB. Koi baat nahi ji. 

Ranveer & Anushka kiss several times in the film. All natural-original kisses. Anushka is in a solid real life relationship with India skipper Virat Kohli.

There hasn’t been an inkling of unease on Kohli’s part about this. For all those who think Kohli is a crude man given his anger & abusive demeanour on field, he’s generations above all his detractors.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Einstein.

Real progress happens in the mind. Kohli is the real progress.

This modern film slaps us with the grim reality of our regressive society. Perhaps the next sequel can showcase another part of the society that inhabits Kohli & Anushka. Because that's the thinking we truly long for & become a part of.