Devil's Advocate | Yami Gautam's angst towards critical reviews for Dasvi is misdirected, but hardly surprising

Devil’s Advocate is a rolling column that sees the world differently and argues for unpopular opinions of the day. This column, the writer acknowledges, can also be viewed as a race to get yourself cancelled. But like pineapple on pizza, he is willing to see the lighter side of it.

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Not for the first time in the history of cinema pretty much anywhere in the world, an actor has reacted, rather hastily, to an underwhelming review of their work. Yami Gautam took to Twitter recently to publically call out a publication and its review, that she believed was ‘disrespectful.’

There was mention in her thread of the amount of work it has taken her to reach where she has, but perhaps what stood out in the mini-rant was the part where she weighed upon the qualifier of being ‘self-made.’

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Both filmmaking and its criticism attempt to serve art. Critics try to articulate what the public seamlessly delivers at the box office, but more than that it is to retain cinema as an idea, and not a fantasy alone. There is value to both obviously but Gautam’s frustration, especially her sense of being hard-done despite being self-made, cannot wholesomely be denied either, given the fact we are talking about it in the context of _Dasvi_, a film anchored by Abhishek Bachchan, who has now been re-launched as many times as he has picked up a script or even a cameo.

Dasvi is based on an interesting premise but does little with it in terms of direction or script. A film that could have been about the state of the country’s education, or its politics for that matter, somehow ends up being about neither. None of the performances land, except maybe Nimrat Kaur as a scheming but ultimately docile wife. It is a poorly casted film, with little to nothing for peripheral characters to chew on; a problem that is aggravated by an anchoring performance that is all macho posturing of the Haryanvi jatt, without any essence of the culture or its people.

For that matter, Gautam’s performance in Dasvi is actually not the worst performance in the film but it says something about how we have been coaxed into receiving second-hand stardom; that the mediocrity of certain names has been normalised to the point we can see past it nonchalantly, unaffected by what it costs us in return.

Gautam’s frustration maybe is not even about the one review. More than anger, it is perhaps the angst of sharing the screen with someone who will get by phoning in another forgettable performance, only for producers to line up and offer him more work. It is this persistence that rewards the mediocrity and numbing repetitiveness of a handful of lead male actors in Hindi cinema. There are now stars in this industry adding to their resume by virtue of acquiring that extra peck on the abs grid rather than doing anything worthwhile remembering. They spend more time with shirts off than they do wearing a thinking, or at least an acting, hat on. A lot of women have chosen similar paths but to them, most of the time, the alternative is not even made available.

To Gautam’s credit, she has tried to latch onto meaty roles. You could not do much else in the steel-faced Uri: The Surgical Strike, but in _Bala_, Gautam perhaps did her best work. Even in something a trifle as _Bhoot Police_, Gautam held her own (aided by the fact that she had to play herself, a woman from the hills). But it is perhaps telling that even in a Bhoot Police, she has to share credit with a Jacqueline Fernandez, who should probably be notified the day she registers something akin to acting.

Bachchan’s case, in comparison, is rather unique. From theatre, to OTT series to films landing on the web, his career has flattered so many times, its deceptions can now become a museum in itself. In fact, one must wonder if this despondence at being self-made but under-recognised is a wound that is aggravated by the presence of a Bachchan and his unimpressive history of almost moments that took more than a village, maybe a town, to produce.

It is strange really that Bachchan, when he is not acting, sounds like he has a head on him. And yet his work reflects the decision-making of a man who would rather look at skinny mirrors to look the part rather than the part that makes him look who he really is as an actor. Moreover, it is the industry’s tendency to legitimise such prolific mediocrity that feels painfully obtrusive. It serves no one, least of all an industry that continues to dig new holes to hide non-talents in public view. The nepotism debate is moot because most industries function as dynasties, but unlike most industries here, you have to deliver individually or forever hold your peace and pride.

It is an unsaid fact really but not all self-made actors are good, and not all industry kids are infuriatingly bad. There is no objective truth to this debate because as long as a Bachchan keeps pulling in roles that are not only undeserved but ill-fitting for his relatively moderate powers, a Yami Gautam will feel undermined — not for how her performances are received, but the ones she has not even been asked to give.

Dasvi is streaming on Netflix India and Jio Cinema.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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