‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ movie review: Bollywood grapples with new sexual identities—and how!
Although the freedom to express one’s sexuality has for years been legal in India, mainstream Indian cinema continues to mostly focus on the stereotypical hetero-normative couples who end up getting married and live happily ever after. Directed by Abhishek Kapoor, ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ is an unconventional love story between bodybuilder Manvinder Munjal aka Manu (Ayushmann Khurrana) and Zumba teacher Manvi Brar (Vaani Kapoor). The audience can sense a chemistry between the two from the time they first meet and, as anticipated, a passionate and intimate relationship ensues.
Gradually the mere lust and attraction turns into love. However, Manvi’s revelation that she is a trans-woman leads Manu into a state of confusion and denial: how can he have feelings for a ‘man’? Brought up in a typical loud patriarchal Punjabi family and with a government school background, Manu struggles to accept that love transcends gender, norms, bodies and societal validation. Instead of beating around the bush, Kapoor reveals Manvi’s past in the beginning of the film itself which will have different reactions from the audience depending on their view about gender and sexuality. As this is a sensitive subject, the lead actors take great pains to internalize their character roles and display the right emotions.
Appreciably, Manvi’s struggles are shown to continue till the present day; Bollywood rarely centers stories on trans characters in a positive light. Although Brar comes from an economically well-off family, she still struggles to carve a space for herself in the society. With only her father (Kanwaljit Singh), a retired brigadier, accepting her true self, she goes through various hardships and heartbreaks, including getting secluded by her own family, even her mother. This also challenges the set social norms of masculinity. Despite being humiliated by everyone, Manvi continues to put up a strong front and doesn’t need an alpha male figure to save her honor. Vaani’s exceptional acting helps us understand her character’s backstory. It was a bold move on her part to play a trans woman as compared to her arm-candy characters in some of her earlier movies.
Also read: Kadaseela Biriyani movie review: Realistically brutal
The concept of what is ‘normal’ is also explored through the Munjal family. From Manu falling in love with an ‘original girl’, as his sisters (Tanya Abrol and Sawan Rupowali) put it, to his father (Girish Dhamija) being in an interfaith marriage, the protagonist is excluded from his own story.
Overall, the film genre shifts from comedy to rom-com to drama and finally ends with sports, grappling with various social biases all the way through, which keeps the audience hooked. Never does the story veer off track; it is quite fast-paced and manages to expertly highlight the difficulties faced by trans people. However, the story could be a little more realistic on how people navigate social biases over their gender identities and how they overcome and accept themselves.
Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui is one step towards speaking openly about topics considered ‘taboo’ and also an eye opener for many.
Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui
Who should watch it?
The movie is rated 18+ and so it may not be suitable for the whole family to sit and watch together. Yet for anyone wanting to understand the problems being faced by the LGBTIQA+ community in this part of the world and to explore their own gender and sexual biases, this is a wonderful, refreshing watch.
Rating: Four stars
Genre: Romance, Action, Drama
Actors: Ayushmann Khurrana, Vaani Kapoor
Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Run time: 116 minutes (2 hours)
‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ book review: Beyond marvelous
I will read anything Taylor Jenkins Reid writes because she does so beautifully. Her words resonate on a different level. I generally use sticky notes to mark pages in books so that I can flip to that place and feel that emotion all over again when the mood strikes but I’d have to mark entire chapters in Reid’s books, so I don’t even bother. She understands people and their complex emotions, and she writes with so much empathy that you find yourself feeling bad for even the most unlikeable of characters.
I absolutely loved ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ which was the first Reid book I ever read. Since then, I’ve read a few of her other works and they have all been equally good. I recently read ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’, one of her most popular and hyped books, and I was completely hooked and overwhelmed. I wanted to get to the end but didn’t want the story to finish.
Daisy Jones & The Six is a novel about the rise and fall of a fictional 70s rock band so there’s a lot of sex, drugs, music, travel, heartache, pain and love to deal with. Apparently, Reid only researched for about six weeks but she’s written about the lives of rock and roll artists as if she’s lived it. She’s even written lyrics to songs that you want to sing along to. Your heart breaks a little when you remember Daisy Jones & The Six and their albums don’t actually exist. On a hopeful note, Reese Witherspoon is planning a limited series based on the book so the songs might actually get made.
Also read: ‘Watch Over Me’ book review: Slow but stunning
The story is told in a transcript format as the band members are being interviewed for a book. I liked this interactive style. You feel you are a part of the conversation, that the characters are talking to you, telling you their deepest secrets and sharing their fears and frustrations. There are basically two stories: that of Daisy Jones, the barefoot bangle-wearing singer-songwriter who is stunning with a voice to match, and that of Billy Dunne, the denim-wearing guitarist and frontman for the rock band The Six.
When Daisy and the band team up, they become an overnight sensation. But not all is well within the band where rivalries run deep and love runs deeper. Though Daisy and Billy have all your attention, there are others like Camila, Billy’s wife; band members Graham and Karen; and manager Rod who you enjoy getting to know. And then there is the nagging question at the back of your head: who is taking the interview, telling the story? When you sort of figure that out along the way and eventually find out why, it makes for a very emotional moment and a mind-blowingly satisfying end.
Daisy Jones & The Six
Five stars
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Published: 2019
Publisher: Arrow Books
Pages: 401, Paperbac
‘Watch Over Me’ book review: Slow but stunning
I generally don’t enjoy slow reads but Nina LaCour’s books are absolute gems. And they have stunning covers that take your breath away. LaCour’s writing is sparse and neat and the stories she tells are simple yet haunting. If you haven’t read her yet, I can’t recommend her enough. ‘Watch Over Me’ might feel a little off if you aren’t used to LaCour’s style but if you don’t mind something different to what you usually read, you’re in for a treat. An eerie ghost story about recovering from trauma and finding yourself, Watch Over Me is bittersweet and fills you with hope.
After graduating from high school and aging out of the foster care system, Mila takes up a teaching job in an isolated part of Northern California coast. She takes this as a chance to begin life afresh and maybe find a new home. But the farm is haunted—by ghosts of the past. Everybody there has suffered abuse, abandonment or neglect to a degree.
Mila too has her issues. Having lived with an abusive man (her mother’s boyfriend) who manipulated them till he died and a mother who didn’t care about her much, there are things that she still struggles to accept and understand. She also has secrets that haunt her. As a teacher at the facility, her job is to help the wards under her care. But the children and other adults at the farm might have a role to play in helping Mila overcome her grief and issues as well. The road to recovery isn’t an easy one though.
Also read: ‘Everything Everything’ book review: Heart-wrenching and compelling
Watch Over Me is a short book but quite profound. The story is told in dual timelines but the stunning contrasting imagery doesn’t leave much room for confusion. Mila, at times, feels like an unreliable narrator. You are confused whether the ghosts and the tokens of the past that she finds at the farm are real, conjured up by her own mind, or tricks people around her are playing on her. This aspect of the story makes it a compelling read. There is also a horde of other characters who feel like people you know and lend the story a warm, comforting feel.
You can finish the book in a single afternoon but you won’t be able to pick up anything else immediately after. This beautiful story of self-exploration and growth that makes you realize that the real demons live inside you in the form of fear, insecurities, and trauma will stay with you for a while.
Watch Over Me
Three and half stars
Nina LaCour
Published: 2020
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 261, Paperback
Kadaseela Biriyani movie review: Realistically brutal
To begin with, there’s nothing exciting about the basic plot of the movie ‘Kadaseela Biriyani’: just a man (Vijay Sethupathi) narrating a story about some villagers in rural South India. But as wide-angle shots take you through dense forests and the lives of the people, the story gets interesting and all of a sudden, you are hooked.
Rarely do I begin a movie review talking about cinematography, but Kadaseela Biryani is a deserved exception. The Tamil-language black comedy has exceptional cinematography courtesy of Azeem Mohammed and Hestin Jose Joseph.
The cinematographer duo uses every trick in the book to create the havoc necessary to tell a violent, brutal tale of three brothers seeking revenge for their father’s murder. From panning the camera to capture the exotic beauty of rural Kerala to following its characters with body cameras to taking the high route with drones to place the characters in their respective settings, the camerawork in Kadaseela Biriyani just mesmerizes you.
As for the story, a slain businessman’s three sons—the eldest Periya Pandi (Vasanth Selvam), the second Ila Pandi (Dinesh Pandi) and the youngest Chikku Pandi (Vijay Ram)—plan to avenge their father’s death by murdering Sathyan (Vishaal Ram), a Kerala rubber-state owner, at his home. Chikku, the youngest, is reluctant as his father had raised him away from his hotheaded brothers but the elder siblings are adamant and force him to become a part.
Their well-planned murder trip goes a bit awry when they find Johan (Hakkim Shah), Sathyan’s psychotic son, at home. The brothers had expected old Sathyan alone, but the presence of his son—an ex-convict with multiple murders that were not even reported due to the family’s influence—scares the wits out of them. Still, they do not want to leave the plantation un-avenged.
Also read: ‘Aranyak’ movie review: Raveena Tandon caps a stellar comeback
The plot, screenplay and their execution in Kadaseela Biriyani have this simplicity that makes the film feel like it’s based on a true story. Our protagonists—the Pandi brothers—seeking to avenge their father are themselves flawed but like commercial cinema, the film does nothing to whitewash their image. Everyone in the film is in a gray area, adding to the violence and brutality of the incidents around the film.
When I talk about violence, I do not mean Tamil blockbuster violence with a huge stunt-crew and CGI. The rudimentary presentation of both physical and mental conflict is so realistic that it instills fear in the audience. For debutant director and co-writer Nishanth Kalidindi, the black comedy also becomes a platform to explore the extremist nature of people that makes them commit serious crimes. The director gets an apt group of actors who perform their roles without becoming larger-than-life: they stay grounded to their characters and settings, again making the film seem uncomfortably real.
Adding to the superb cinematography, writing/direction and acting are the film’s music. Although based in rural South India, the film’s background score does not make much use of traditional music heavily influenced by ethnic percussion instruments. The music rather is stylistically modern, not overbearing and for a Tamil film—fresh! Never had I thought that continuous beating of a single hi-hat from a Western drum kit could cause so much tension in a scene.
Who should watch it?
Kadaseela Biriyani is my first review of 2022 and I am glad I watched it without hearing or reading about it. With so little expectation at the start, my experience by the end was overwhelming. I would recommend it for anyone who trusts my selection of movies.
