What do you call a movie with rovers, lovers, and a city with just as much character as anyone else in the movie? A non-Anurag Kashyap film.
Manmarziyaan is a vibrant 155-minutes-long musical love story that kept me hooked throughout. The characters painted a messy, complex web of their own issues.
This isn’t a regular Romeo-Juliet-esque love story or even a love triangle where the grand old father figure is dead against the marriage. This is a love triangle with no external problems, the issues here are deeply personal.
What really jumped out for me in the film was how the three characters merge into one at some point in the film, and how the music gives the streets and the situations, the necessary depth, life, and colour.
Since so much has been said about the movie already, I decided to pick my favourite bits that made Manmarziyaan one of the most amazing films that I’ve seen this year.
Taapsee Pannu’s Fiery Portrayal of Rumi
When Pannu is on screen, everything lights up and nothing seems impossible. She can achieve anything, get anything. She isn’t the stereotypical Bollywood female lead.
Her character, Rumi, is a rebel who lives on her own terms, likes to take her own decisions, and sticks to her word. She can’t be foxed or tricked into doing things that don’t speak to her.
When Rumi and Vicky aka DJ Sandzzz (Vicky Kaushal) decide to elope, she realises how futile it is because they don’t have a plan for the future. She prophesies that her tumultuous love affair with Vicky will fizzle out, as there is no readiness on his part. She snaps him out of his lackadaisical attitude and tries to beat sense into him.
She is the sane voice of reason in the relationship. She brings maturity into it. That’s how adult relationships work today. Women are no longer pushovers or dormant partners, they are in control and plan their future just as they are settling into the present. Pannu plays the part deftly.
When Rumi Doesn’t Know Who She Loves More
Rumi’s character doesn’t just grow on you, it also entangles you in the mess that she has made of her life. Loving Vicky while being married to Robbie (Abhishek Bachchan) almost breaks the fourth wall.
As a member of the audience, I lived Rumi’s character. It was almost as if I was inside her mind, trying to grapple with what she could possibly do next.
The need to just cry and scream yet put a brave, almost nonchalant front to the world breaks you down, as it does Rumi. It speaks volumes about her mental space. Her silence takes us further into her character.
The Telling Silences
There is a lot in the movie that is spoken through its silences. Robbie’s strength isn’t in being outspoken, it lies in his quietude. He has to drown himself in alcohol to let his vulnerabilities out.
Vicky too says more when he doesn’t say anything at all. He silently enunciates his irresponsible and reckless behaviour. He knows nothing but being in love. He might be crazy but he is harmless as a lover.
He loves Rumi yet doesn’t know when or how to take the next step towards their future. When he reverses his car, leaving Rumi in a lurch, his tears depict his tribulations deftly. In Manmarziyaan, it is these silences that take the narrative forward.
When the Homemaker Saves the Husband and Not the Other Way Round
A rather funny moment that stayed with me is when Vicky breaks into the marriage broker’s house. The marriage broker is setting up Rumi with Robbie. Vicky gets a hint of this and decides to break into his house, Bollywood villain style.
The man of the house here is shown to take a back seat and the broker’s wife resolves the matter. She is shown blocking her bedroom while reprimanding the drunk boys for breaking into the house. The broker meanwhile is hiding somewhere.
A funny yet important shift in the depiction of the weak ‘homemaker’ figure in Bollywood.
The Walk
The fifth and final moment that stayed with me was Rumi and Robbie’s walk in the by-lanes of Amritsar. The walk is both pleasant and mundane and it absorbs you into their lives even more.
We finally get closure on why they are the way they are. We understand their past lives and we realise how it ruined them in more ways than one. They become even more endearing. We also get to know that Vicky has moved to Australia.
The music, Amritsar, the family and friends all add beautifully to tell this messy tale of love and madness. The story stays with you for a very long time.
Go watch this beautifully messy tale of selfish love!
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)