An Everyday Affair

DOAURDOPYAAR ★★★1/2 Director: shir shag uh a th a kurt a Cast: vi dy ab alan, pr atik gandhi, i lean ad’ cruz, send hi lr am am ur thy

IT’S BEEN A MARRIED couple in the midst of an affair each, wondering where they are at loyalty-and-betrayal-wise ,feels like a neatly tied bow on a case full of roiled feelings. Dental practitioner Kavya Ganesan (Balan) and reluctant businessman Anirudh aka Ani Bannerjee (Gandhi) are a classic example of a pair having fallen out with each other: no smiles, no warmth, each occupying their side of the bed, sleeping with their phones.

Each has a tasty bit on the side, she cosying up to Vikram (Ramamurthy) a photographer who trots the globe in search of the right picture, and he doing ditto with the clearly much-younger nora(d’ cruz ), a struggling actress waiting anxious ly for her first big break.

Crossed wires and four people is a classic rom-com set; bored marrieds looking for excitement is even more so. But Do Aur Do P ya ar, based on the 2017 debra wing er- tracy Letts starrer The Lovers, promises freshness both as to plot and cast. We have two illicit relationships, running parallel, and two actors—gandhi, such a hoot in last month’ s ca per Madgaon Express, and Ramamurthy, splashing out as a dishy dad in Never Have I Ever — neither of whom has been seen in such a role.

So is it double the fun? It does spring to life intermittent ly, bu ti expected more: more feelings, more depth. a floundering marriage story is one of the oldest stories in the book, needing new insight into frailties and weaknesses and wounded egos.

Here the cuts stay slight: how do two people not have the slightest idea that there is someone else in the equation, especially a couple, we are told in a sequence seemingly created for just such information to be imparted to us, has done the whole falling-inlove and running-away-with-each-other thing, and who presumably know each other inside out?

We do get the backstory of the two people at the centre of the movie, and how they got together. when we seek av ya an dani circling back towards each other, the residual sparks they once shared are clearly visible, and that gives them heft: we don’t see that sizzle, ironically, when they are with their ‘others’; these secondary characters never feel fully fleshed out.

In the original film, the straying couple is much older; here Ani and Kavya are only in their late 30s, so where’s the fire? Sure, there are hidden text messages, leading to smiles and sighs, but neither pair makes you feel as if they want to jump their lovers’ bones. sure, even extra-marital passion can start feeling familiar, but a glimpse of the time when it was all new and exciting, would have been an added flavour.

The most impactful segment is one in which Ani and Kavya are left to negotiate spikiness in the latter’s family home in sylvan Ooty, where we see her thirsting for her disagreeable father’s affection. The gathering at her thaatha’s (grandfather) funeral is suffused with a mordant-humour- in-seriousness vein: a steamy sequence, plumb in the middle of the mourning household, is funny, as are the cross-currents amongst relatives curious about the‘ ma pill ai ’( son-in law) back home for the first time.

The actual discourse amongst the married couple and the lovers, on the other hand, is much more constructed and underlined. More than one sequence between ba lana nd Ramamurthy feels dialogue-heavy, and when D’cruz and Gandhi are together, you can never shake off the feeling of him humouring her. Just what made these people leap at each other, and why aren’t we shown that initial spark?

Of the foursome, Balan, who expectedly gets top billing, is all practised ease, breaking out in a climactic slanging match. They fight over steel bartan and baigun posto, and it finally feels real. Ramamurthy and D’ Cruz do their jobs. The real gift is Gandhi, both as the spouse who feels done against, as well as the confused cheat, while also showing some mean moves on the dance floor.

Humans are strange creatures. they long for what they don’t have, and when they do get it, they don’t want it any more. This is the premise, and for a bollywood movie, it’ s new enough. Rekindling banked embers can be a thing. Again, something not done to death in our rom-coms. When these strands are playing out, the film has a satisfactory sting, but it makes us wait for those bits.