Kabir Singh is just ugly cinema.

Major spoilers below.

Kabir Singh is not a movie. It is an outburst. It’s a hell of a good one, at that. Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga concocts a cocktail of emotions - happiness, laughter, sadness, depression, anxiety, anger, rage, joy, jealousy, lust, love - all in one film. Is it entertaining? Hell yes. Is it problematic? Hell yes. But which outweighs the other? Which of the two is more overbearing? Now, a job of a critic is to critique a film. But, when you watch movies like this, Sonu ke Titu ki Sweety, PM Narendra Modi and more in that direction, are you supposed to critique films only based on their watchability? I’d say no.

If you believe otherwise, then I’m sorry, this review isn’t for you. Because Kabir Singh is a staunchly misogynistic film, and the barrels and truckloads of money that are currently pouring in is just an indication of the amount that our country hates women and has hated them. It’s ironic. Vanga’s film comes right at the heels of the #MeToo movement, which gave women their moment in the son. The movie opens with leading man Shahid Kapoor portraying the titular beast, pulling a knife on a woman, urging her to take her clothes off.

In other words? He sexually harasses her. The audience laughed. He leaves her home shirtless, immediately calls his friend, asks for a hookup. He is rejected. This too is played for laughs. Then, whilst preparing for a surgery, he tries to make a move on a female nurse, who runs away. This again, played for laughs. You get where I’m going with this. The problem is that the makers of Kabir Singh aren’t stupid. Vanga’s film is not only a scene by scene or a line by line, it is a word-for-word translation of his Telugu original film, Arjun Reddy.

Having seen Arjun Reddy right after this film, it almost seems like the makers copy-pasted that script into Google Translate, and re-wrote it with some ‘sufism’ and one or more ‘Kabir ke dohe’ (because the name Kabir must have some meaning!) But, it begs the question? Did we really need this film twice over? Did we really need Shahid Kapoor to do again what Vijay Devarakonda did inarguably better? Call me ageist, but the main problem is that Kapoor is far too old to be in college. There. I said it. In Ishq Vishq (2003), Kapoor was in college. In 16 years, are we really to believe that he hasn’t aged a moment? His acting is fine, but he misses Devarakonda’s unobserved silences. His performance is more physical in nature, which isn’t really his fault. Arjun Reddy was Devarakonda’s breakthrough into mainstream Telugu cinema, so that slight hesitation before the delivery of each dialogue, the feeling of each emotion and the expression of every word worked in the character’s favour. Here, Kabir Singh (just as the testosterone fuelled North Indian name tells us) is an asshole. His character has no shades. We can’t feel for him, because unlike Devdas, he doesn’t seek any help. He’s more self destructive.

In Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 gorgeous epic, I weeped when Devdas showed up drunk to his father’s funeral. Here? I cringed as Kabir gatecrashes his lady love, Preeti (Kiara Alia Advani)’s wedding, banging on doors, breaking glasses and pushing people. It’s all too physical. Notice how I mentioned the supposed trigger of this entire godforsaken movie, Preeti (Advani) six paragraphs in. That should perhaps be symbolic of the larger problem. Preeti has perhaps 40 lines throughout the 173 minute runtime. Her first complete sentence, an hour into the film is, “Kabir, what do you like in me?”

And mind you - this hour has already seen them make love, have a spat, have him kiss her on their first encounter, move her into his hostel, fix her foot and claim her as his plush toy. Yet, the aforementioned line comes after all this. What more is there to say? Advani is a good actor, as seen in Lust Stories and her deviously limited role in Kalank, where she was unable to make too much of an impact. Here, she’s limited to weeping as a silent observer, who, at regular intervals, says, “Baby! Baby! Baby!” She gets one scene to convince us of our acting chops. There’s no doubt, she’s good in it.

But, the scene involves a brutal slap, and an ugly altercation where Kabir says, “The entire campus knows you as nothing but my girl.” Our lady love meekly responds, “Yes. I know. I’m nothing without you.” This is no longer cinema. Perhaps, the combined wits of Shahid Kapoor, Bhushan Kumar, Sandeep Vanga and Kiara Advani are so high that this film is supposed to be a dark, dystopian drama and a scathing critique on the patriarchy, but seeing the numbers and crowds it’s pulling in, I highly doubt it.

The screenplay, too, is scattered. The music, however, by Sachet-Parampara is outstanding. Bekhayali is an instant favourite. Ravi Chandran’s cinematography is a frame by frame recreation of Arjun Reddy. Its sets are recreations. Everything about Kabir Singh is a recreation, an adaptation. The only thing it misses is the only scene in Arjun Reddy where a character reprimands another for objectifying an air hostess. Oh good. And we critics complain about length! Speaking of length, this film is far too long. At three hours, the story is so dragged out, that by the time Kabir has a change of heart, you are done. And drained. At the end, Kabir’s father looked at him and said, “You need a vacation. You deserve it.” My eyes rolled back into my head. “For what?” I thought. “For the overload of misogyny and masculinity he’s shown?” But that thought was quickly dispelled.

Because after this film, I need a vacation.

Rating: 1 Star.