Rahul Desai
Watching it is like watching the director wrestling and challenging previous versions of himself. At some level, it’s like seeing the storyteller become the story. The look is the same, but the voice feels older and wiser.
I like that the narrative leans more towards changing the conservatives (him) than the liberals (her), but in the end it stops just short of fully dismissing the offenders.
Men get schooled by women; a regressive Punjabi household gets schooled by a headstrong Bengali; brains get schooled by bodies; lust gets schooled by love; old people get schooled by young; and most of all, tradition gets schooled by modernity.
Oh, and it’s also a nice excuse to cut Ranveer Singh loose as Ranveer Singh. It’s the sort of nutty role that thrives on the sheer anticipation of what he might do or say; the possibilities are endless.
Rani threatens to shake the foundation of a loveless space with punchlines about “changing winds,” while Jaya Bachchan is the zero-tolerance Narayan Shankar waiting to be converted