Manmarziyaan Review - Vindicating Love

Manmarziyaan is derived from ‘mann’ and ‘marzi’. To steal a line from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, ‘young people are like frisky young rabbits, and good advice is like a crippled old man trying to catch them.’ Here, the frisky young rabbits are gleefully lost in their own make-believe world. Rumi and Vicky jump from roof to roof for sex; but they wouldn’t do it for each other. Theirs is a modern kind of love. They joyously abandon any practicality and replace it with lust. Rumi, played by a Taapsee Pannu, is a firebrand. She’s aggressive, belligerent but ultimately rendered useless by love.

Rumi, looking resplendent with her fiery locks, oscillates between Vicky (Vicky Kaushal), an Amritsari DJ with electric blue hair and Robbie, a crowd-pleasing ‘ramji’ type; whose calmness and composure draws Rumi in. Robbie here is the crippling good advice; that’ll slow Rumi down and inject into her adrenaline rush of a life; a shot of quietude. Now that pitch isn’t really something you’d link with the director of this film - Anurag Kashyap. Kashyap’s mind and lens generally lingers somewhere around the darkly lit by-lanes of Mumbai. In his best films, there is a sense of detachment yet one of chaos.

Manmarziyaan, though set in a completely different tone and having inherently unique textures, is no different. Here too, the characters are self-destructive individuals with not a care in the world. They’re flawed, selfish and disgusting people - yet you can’t help but care for them. That is the sense of abandon in Kashyap’s best films. So, in Raman Raghav 2.0, he made you invest in a serial killer and an equally destructive police officer. Manmarziyaan too grapples with such big ideas - but due to indulgence, especially in the screenplay of the film - it all results in a scattered climax that feels unearned and quite frankly, abrupt.

But Manmarziyaan’s motive is not to make you care for any of these people. That’s up to the actors that play them. Its actual purpose is to vindicate love at the movies and instead put its messy characters on trial. As this film argues - love isn’t the complicated, messy emotion that we’re all entangled in - it is the people who are in love that make it messy. The film flies when its erratic emotions brim and ultimately come to the surface. But, it’s burdened by the legacy of its own director, whose trademark is as much realism as it is indulgence.

That’s why the film, in its last act, seems like it’s drudging towards like an end rather than earning it. But Taapsee Pannu as the electrifying Rumi, Vicky Kaushal as the insecure rebel without a cause and Abhishek Bachchan as the quiet NRI with something simmering underneath are all spectacular. Manmarziyaan soars when they spread their wings and fly. That’s why the first half is just magical. It coasts entirely on the severe energy and sheer acting talent of its three leads. Kashyap layers his characters with more than just an old world charm. His camera just follows them in their daily lives. So when one of the characters has an affair, there is no judgement. You can only watch.

But ultimately in the second half, when the drama hits a crescendo, Manmarziyaan loses its spark. It becomes prosaic, monotonous and repetitive. Now, the reason that the excitement slowly fizzles out is because Manmarziyaan is largely derivative of older films. The most prominent examples being Anil Kapoor’s Woh Saat Din and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. But really, Manmarziyaan not only updates those old classics, but refutes their purpose. In the hands of Anurag Kashyap, we don’t get pillars of piety. Instead, we get frayed, broken and imperfect characters, handling the trials and tribulations around this over-hyped feeling.

But it’s no secret that Manmarziyaan lies with Pannu’s brilliant turn as Rumi. As she sways between two men she genuinely loves - one offers lust, the other security - there is not a false beat in her performance. Rumi, like love, is a multi-layered thing. Ironically, unlike the 13th century poet of the same name, who wrote poetry about love and desire, Rumi is content being in her own rebellious angst. She is deeply relatable and Pannu collaborates seamlessly with dialogue writer Kanika Dhillon, to create a full flesh and blood character. It’s a self assured performance, one that charges miles ahead of any of her co-stars.

Not to say that the men are anything less. Vicky Kaushal and Abhishek Bachchan are also outstanding. Vicky’s character of the same name has no inhibitions, except he just can’t get over this femme fatale. Abhishek’s turn as Robbie is something much larger. There is a sense of rebelliousness, that ebbs underneath the NRI exterior. Robbie finds solace in Rumi’s angst; and for Rumi, it’s the opposite.

Anurag’s tagline for Manmarziyaan was - “Love Isn’t Complicated - People Are!”. If Manmarziyaan aims to absolve love of all its crimes, and truly free it from all the stereotypes that directors with the likes of Bhansali and Karan Johar have associated with it - then this love must be directed somewhere.

I direct my love to Manmarziyaan’s three brilliant leads.