Manmarziyaan: Anurag Kashyap forfeits his signature edginess to shape a tender love triangle

Anurag Kashyap’s latest offering Manmarziyaan is tailored to make its leading lady shine. Vicky Kaushal’s quirky Vicky and Abhishek Bachchan’s conventional Robbie are given plenty moments, but Manmarziyaan is a Taapsee Pannu show, through and through. [caption id=“attachment_5174291” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Vicky Kaushal, Taapsee Pannu and Abhishek Bachchan in Manmarziyaan. Image via YouTube[/caption] Taapsee plays Rumi, a polar opposite to the philosopher and thinker, since she is as fickle-minded as this film’s narrative, shaped by both Kashyap and writer Kanika Dhillon. Rumi is an Amritsar-based hockey merchandise store owner, madly and unapologetically in love with Vicky, a wannabe DJ. However, as she veers towards the prospect of arranged marriage in search of a more responsible partner, she makes London-returned banker Robbie fall for her. And so ensues a love triangle between three lost souls who subconsciously rediscover themselves. Manmarziyaan will be a watershed film for Taapsee as it offers her a career-best performance. Despite recently appearing in Anubhav Sinha’s courtroom drama Mulk, Shaad Ali’s sports film Soorma and Tigmanshu Dhulia’s ZEE5 romantic comedy Baarish Aur Chowmein within the span of two months, Taapsee shows no signs of slowing down. She takes on the character of a new age Punjabi kudi with panache and a swagger that seems inbuilt, and never thrust upon. She carries off messy-tied-up hair and plain T-shirts with a sense of ownership and lends a dash of realism to her portrayal. Vicky comes close to stealing the show; his body language and confidence is spot on as he displays the coolth of a small town DJ with as much effortlessness as he exposes his character’s vulnerability, one that stems more from his fear of commitment than a lack of strength. Abhishek Bachchan returns to what he does best – play the good boy. It’s a progression from his simpleton act in Sooraj Barajtya’s 2003 film Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon and an adorable husband in Karan Johar’s 2006 drama Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. He has oodles of charm to offer but given that Manmarziyaan is being touted as his reinvention, he underperforms to a large extent. He is the weakest of the supremely talented lot though he is cast to a fault. With Manmarziyaan, Anurag flirts with a script that is not written by him in its majority. Thus, the signature edginess, that could have made the two lead male characters more delectable, is missing here. But he makes up for it by giving an alternative treatment to the saturated romance genre. Kashyap works in tandem with all the key departments of the film. The biggest shoutout must go to the music composer Amit Trivedi, who has already taken the nation by storm through tracks like ‘Daryaa’ and ‘F for Fyaar’. With the aid of lyricist Shelle, Trivedi inserts just the ideal stretch of all his songs at various junctures of the film. This adds tremendous value to a narrative already made enriched by tight editing (particularly in the first part; editor Aarti Bajaj goes lax in the second half) and Sylvester Fonseca’s zestful cinematography. Production designer Meghna Gandhi and costume designer Prashant Sawant add colour to frames that oscillate between the Golden Temple and graffiti on the walls of Amritsar’s abandoned lanes. Thematically, the film touches upon a larger point of duality, symbolically conveying the idiom, “All matches are made in heaven.” For every pyaar, there is fyaar; for every instance of responsibility, there is a moment of abandon. During the second half, one may feel that the director is also in two minds about taking his narrative forward. But if you align this confusion to the leading lady’s conflicted state of mind, you might come closer to decoding Kashyap’s magic — one that transports the audience into the riddled minds of his flawed characters. (Note: This is a first-impression analysis of Manmarziyaan. Read Anna Vetticad’s movie review of the film here . )