De De Pyaar De 2
U/A: Comedy, family drama
Dir: Anshul Sharma
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh, R Madhavan, Gautami Kapoor
Rating: 2 stars
De De Pyaar De 2 is not insufferable. And that’s perhaps the nicest thing I can say about this film which takes two of India’s most luminous stars — Ajay Devgn and R Madhavan — and dishes out a film that doesn’t even bother trying.
Arriving six years after the first film, it walks back into the same idea — what happens when a woman in her 20s and a man in his 50s fall in love. But it has none of the chutzpah of its first part, falling further into an idea that R Balki brilliantly executed in Cheeni Kum (2007). Very little of it actually works in this sitcom-style, messy, bewildering and even convoluted story. Why am I watching this then?
Well, Madhavan is simply that good an actor!
The story moves from where the first part left us. After being faced with Ashish’s (Devgn) first wife Manju, played beautifully by Tabu, this time the mismatched, frowned-upon couple must get the blessings of Ayesha’s (Rakul Preet Singh) parents. It would seem like an easier task given that R Madhavan’s Rajji Khurana and his wife (Gautami Kapoor) are fairly cool parents. They kiss in front of their kids, have a drink with them, and are fairly progressive in their thinking. But this ‘how-liberal-is-too-liberal’ story puts them to a gruelling test when they meet their daughter’s partner who is their age. The real match is when the medicines match and that probably wasn’t the idea of bonding Rajji had in mind while envisioning his son-in-law. Now with a better writer and more skilled director, this Ajay-Maddy duel on screen could have had the sparkle that Tabu brought on screen in the film’s last part. But this time around, it’s a rather one-man show with Madhavan going from confused to cheesed off and eventually on board with his daughter’s choice. Some combative battle of wits would have made for a funnier watch, I reckon.
Instead director Anshul Sharma decides to bring in an actor with perfectly chiselled abs because he perhaps has little faith in his ability to generate genuinely witty laughs. Rajji to lure his daughter back to safety from the clutches of an older man, makes her meet his friend’s son (Meezaan Jafri) hoping that sparks fly between them. In turn, the screenplay moves further into more jokes about age gap and several of them are seriously unfunny.
Predictably, Luv Ranjan, Sharma, and writers cannot bring themselves to believe that women are capable of being strong-headed creatures who won’t get swayed simply by six-pack abs — neither on screen, nor in real life. If Ayesha has decided to bring a man their age into her parents’ homes, she probably has given this more thought than the writers did.
Meezaan is easy on the eye and does his good boy routine perfectly, much like the dismal Nadaaniyan, where he was an absolute show-stealer. But it’s his father, played by his real-life father Jaaved Jafferi, who bring out an unusual and easy chemistry with Devgn, reminding us of what the superstar is capable of in his top-form.
I had hoped that the film would delve deeper into expectations mismatch between an older man dating a young woman, the insecurities that stem from how life experiences have led them to different planes in their lives, but the film is either interested in serving gags or melodrama. Producer Ranjan, who has made a career of writing bro-comedies, makes me wonder if he knows the bros enough. Of course, his writing has moved from the puerile 2015 hit Pyaar Ka Punchnama, but it still lacks the heft to show men as well-rounded characters, in sync with their emotions, trying to do better than what patriarchy allows them. The only silver lining here is that the happiness and desires of women are acknowledged, notwithstanding the larger double standards of the universe, which felt refreshing. The last 20 minutes of the film feels like a sharp twist but the fact that it meanders through homes in London, Chandigarh, and a farmhouse for more than two hours before coming to the actual point is a deal breaker.
While I found myself lost in the one-million silly gags of the film, I did admire Singh for holding her own in front of some seasoned actors. It was a delight watching Suhasini Mulay after a long time on screen. But mostly, one can’t help but miss Tabu, who gave the last part a wicked cheekiness which is absolutely absent from this sequel.
De De Pyaar 2 pretends to be something else, is actually a whole different film, with men and women who need to speak to their therapist at the earliest. There are too many revenge-seeking people, including manipulative parents, unforgiving lovers trying to indulge in a game of one-upmanship, to be sincere about emotions and be honest about what they truly seek and desire. Of course, the film ends with ‘let adults be adults’ message, but the long drawn approach it takes to deliver on a rather simple logline is hardly heartfelt.
I really hope in the next edition in the film franchise, Tabu’s Manju make a return, in love with a hot young man. I am just curious what the reactions will be and hopeful that it will make for a far more interesting film.
*YUCK **WHATEVER ***GOOD ****SUPER *****AWESOME