Dil Dhadakne Do (Zoya Akhtar, 2015)

by Zeba Shahnaz Fazli

It is perhaps easy to dismiss a considerable swath of mainstream Bollywood films as candyfloss stories about the romantic trials and tribulations of the Indian elite. Films that situate themselves squarely within that distinctly upper-class milieu, even in part, with a focus on spectacular set design and locations, over the top song sequences, and sheer star power, among other aspects, sometimes risk alienating potential audiences as being too unrealistic, and not in an escapist way. Zoya Akhtar is just one of the filmmakers accused of only writing and directing stories set in elite worlds similar to her own, as a so-called star kid and as an A-list mainstream director in her own right. Her most recent film, Dil Dhadakne Do (2015), about a dysfunctional upper-class Punjabi family and the interpersonal conflicts that rise to the surface when they and seemingly the entirety of their social circle go on a luxury cruise around the Mediterranean, could be (and has been) easily construed as yet another poor little rich family story. But that summary dismissal is hardly fair, especially because this film is 100% aware of what it is (or what it will be understood as), and executes it with a focus on characters with rich inner lives, resonant arcs, and compelling relationships.

That self-awareness is underlined within the first fifteen minutes, as the somewhat quirky, ironically detached narrator introducing us to the peculiarities of the Mehra family reveals himself to be Pluto, the Mehra siblings’ dog (voiced by Aamir Khan). Pluto’s knowing narration grants us permission as an audience to enjoy the main characters’ high society shenanigans, romantic and otherwise, as glossy (but not disposable) entertainment, just as it explicitly points out and reflects on the absurdity of everything that is happening on screen, in terms of the luxury being put on display and the convolutions of the plot. Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s script, however, does not rely excessively on this somewhat meta narrative structure. For the Mehras’ foibles, in Pluto’s eyes and therefore in those of the audience, are symptomatic not just of their elite socioeconomic status, but rather, of their very humanity. Akhtar’s approach to portraying the Mehra family as a version prototypical modern Indian family, albeit on a bigger scale, is, then, completely warranted, and moreover is executed with a knowing authorial wink and a great deal of affection.

To that end, Akhtar fills her cast with family-member tropes we all know and are meant to love. There is Kamal (Anil Kapoor), the selfish, philandering CEO whose company is secretly on the verge of bankruptcy; Neelam (Shefali Shah), his steel-willed wife, struggling to save face in the eyes of her social circle and save her company from insolvency; Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra), their put-upon married daughter, whose professional success almost everyone undermines; and Kabir (Ranveer Singh), their somewhat spoiled prince of a son, who wants nothing more than to fly planes instead of run his father’s company. The particulars of their problems may be rarified, but at their core, these characters and the rest – and indeed, the cast is sprawling, including everyone from catty aunties to secondary romantic jodis to precocious cousins, and many more besides – are not too far removed from people we may know in our own lives, with concerns that echo in fundamental ways those of mainstream society. Kamal and Neelam’s marriage has become adversarial, even broken, over the years, but they stay together because of social expectations; they scheme to marry Kabir off to the daughter of their rival for their own financial gain, and restless Kabir is not immediately opposed to the idea; Ayesha is expected by everyone to forego her business and become a mother as soon as possible, even though it is the last thing she wants to do. None of the characters, in the Mehra family or beyond it, can admit that they are not the people they are expected to be to anyone other than themselves; they all contort themselves to fit into certain roles, and they are all fundamentally unhappy because of it.

The inclusion of ‘outsider’ characters like Farah Ali (Anushka Sharma), the “fearless” Muslim cruise ship dancer with whom Kabir falls in love, and Sunny Gill (Farhan Akhtar), the rugged-gentleman journalist son of Kamal’s manager who happens to be Ayesha’s ex-boyfriend, ensures also that there is a more middle-class, down-to-earth, consummately modern point-of-view that intrudes upon the Mehra milieu as well. Farah and Sunny are in fact are the ones who really break the straw on their respective love-interest’s backs, and encourage them (and through Kabir and Ayesha, the rest of the family) to follow their hearts, confess what they truly wish for in their lives, and thereby become a whole family again. The end of the movie sees the Mehras (and Pluto!) racing on a lifeboat to reunite Kabir on the shore with the departed Farah. We don’t see the result of this adventure, but we don’t need to, and not just because the utterly charming, retro-style title song featuring the whole main cast (and sung by Chopra and Farhan Akhtar) that plays over the credits more or less confirms Kabir and Farah’s reunion. The Mehra family is finally supporting one another as they chase their dreams and begin to live their truest selves. It’s a beautiful thing, with or without the romantic plots, and Zoya Akhtar does well to close out the narrative plot with not an ending, but a promise of a beginning.

As well-characterized as the Mehras and the rest of their guests are, the freshest and most compelling character in this stacked cast is easily Ayesha. Despite having been married off by her parents against her will at twenty-one to keep her away from her lower-class boyfriend Sunny, she has become one of the top young entrepreneurs in the country, and on top of that, is a genuinely kind, thoughtful, mature, loving woman. Her family and society, though, understand her worth as a human as resting in the image of her successful marriage and the promise of her fertility. That she is secretly taking birth control, and not-so-secretly contemplating divorce, despite the lack of apparent ‘problems’ in her marriage to Manav (Rahul Bose), makes Ayesha one of the more progressive characters to be portrayed in Bollywood of late; that she still finds herself succumbing to familial and social pressure to try to become the wife she is supposed to be makes her one of the most realistic. She embodies so many of the tensions that women everywhere, let alone India, must navigate as they are encouraged to become modern and worldly yet hold the goals of marriage and motherhood paramount. The ways in which she navigates those tensions – her dead-eyed “lie back and think of India” sex life with Manav, her desperate pleading with Kabir to not fall into their parents’ meddling the way she did, her quietly allowing her mother and her passive-aggressive mother-in-law (Zarina Wahab) to talk over her when she expresses her unhappiness, her rekindling of feelings for Sunny – show that she is a woman so of our times that she often becomes paralyzed by the very modernity she, and many in the audience, so prizes, as it collides at times with a more traditional outlook on social roles. But she still gets to rise triumphant: her desires are finally vindicated by her family when they finally support her decision to leave Manav, and gets a promise of a life with Sunny in the not-too-distant future. Pluto marvels at the beginning that Ayesha is not like other girls, but that is not quite true. Ayesha Mehra is every girl who needs to be reassured that her wishes are legitimate because they are her own, and that she is depicted in such a viscerally honest way without that characterization compromising the perhaps required happy ending is a big step for representation of women and their stories in Bollywood.

 And to her immense credit, Akhtar pulls it all off with aplomb. The luxurious world she depicts never seems ostentatious or obnoxious, and she never lets the spectacular visuals overwhelm the human core of her plot; instead, the stunningly appointed polished ship interior, the beautiful sequences in and around the Mediterranean, including scenes in Turkey, France, and Tunisia, and certainly the ultra-sleek costuming choices for almost all of the characters, all paint a picture of a world that is as lush and, dare I say, exotic to experience as a viewer, as it can be suffocating for those trapped within it. The characters have real (if trope-dependent) personalities that are portrayed, to the entire cast’s credit, with deftness and sincerity, and the plot never forces them to descend too noisily into over-the-top melodrama. With excellent dialogue (by Farhan and Javed Akhtar), all the actors bounce off each other effortlessly, even in confrontational scenes, with what feels like years of comfort (and, granted, discomfort) behind all of it. The Gallan Goodiyan song sequence in particular, involving the entire cast and numerous extras and background dancers, captured in a single elaborately-staged tracking shot, exemplifies just how deeply interconnected and how effectively drawn this cinematic world really is.

           At first glance, Dil Dhadakne Do may indeed seem like escapist, elitist candyfloss. But Zoya Akhtar turns a critical eye on some of the conventions of that genre, and in the process uses them to create a fully realized world, populated with characters not too distant from types we as an audience recognize in our own realities, and those who deserve to be portrayed more often on screen. She treats everyone, including her narrator Pluto, as mundanely, pettily, selfishly, and therefore gloriously, human – and to really be human is to, as the song says, let the heart beat.