Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui movie review: Ayushmann Khurrana starrer comes off as oddly generic

What occurs when brash Chandigarh munda Manu Munjal (Khurrana), weightlifter, body-builder, protein-ingester, keto (pronounced, fairly correctly by such a one, ‘kitto’) dieter falls in lust with the very ‘soni Ambala kudi’ Maanvi Brar (Vaani Kapoor)? Nicely, for starters, plenty of intercourse.

Sure, that very factor that too many Bollywood rom coms nonetheless act stupidly coy about. Full marks to Khurrana and Kapoor for going at one another with an excessive amount of enthusiasm, presenting us with a tangle of our bodies which makes their energetic couplings fairly convincing.

She is all legs and slender arms and gentle-swell-of-bosom; he’s all bulging biceps, shaved sides of head, and a excessive ‘pony’. She is a Sector 4 kind (Chandigarh denizens will get the in-joke; for the remainder, ‘Sector 4’ is the place the fashionable, cool, old-moneyed varieties dwell). She says Zumba, he says Joomba. He farts, she makes a fragile face. You get the drift.

Whereas we’re busy applauding this welcome exhibition of ardour between two consenting adults, there’s a sudden spike within the works. Maanvi has a deep, darkish secret, and as soon as that comes tumbling out, harsh phrases are exchanged, and there’s a rift within the lute.

Abhishek Kapoor’s movie, which is about how love is love, howdy gender fluidity, variations be damned, is on to one thing. Even in 2021, Bollywood prefers taking part in protected and conserving all difficult topics at bay. On that rating, getting in a trans individual as romantic plot level is an act of braveness. However Kapoor can be cautious, one would possibly say just a little too cautious, and wraps the whole lot up in jokey stereotypy. However in case you are so nervous about doubtlessly alienating your viewers, you might be additionally prone to dilute the heft of your topic. So that you go forward and insert phrases like ‘chakka’ (ugh) as a way to get your hero to push again in opposition to it and really feel very noble. However to make use of ‘paagalon ka physician’ for psychiatrists? Actually?

Manu is given two nosey sisters who’re so heavy-handed about his welfare that you simply itch to inform them to close up. He has a widowed father in love with a lady from, gasp, a minority faith: the movie slips in a muttered line about Hindu-Musalmaan amity. He has not only one BFF, however two, twins who encompass him with ‘faadu Punjabbi’ traces, all hearty and coarse. These are acquainted components into which you’ll be able to insert the love with trans individual angle, and wait with bated breath. Will we settle for it? Or stroll away from it?

Nicely, we now have information. We grew up when Bollywood wasn’t wanting. So whereas it’s courageous that there is usually a line like ‘aadmi wali shakal ki aurat’, for a girl who was a person earlier than the sex-change operation, a point out of ‘bi’ folks, just a little speech on what constitutes ‘regular’, and the presence of a clearly butch individual, the entire doesn’t actually add as much as a movie with any surprises: you understand precisely what is going to occur at every beat. The movie does go down a path no mainstream Bollywood movie has dared to, and but comes off oddly generic.

Which is a pity. Kapoor himself is aware of the way to mine a narrative: his ‘Kai Po Che’ continues to be a favorite. Khurrana, Chandigarh boy for actual, is correct at house in his bristly-brawny-softie Manu, Kapoor’s svelte licensed bodily coach with a troubled previous takes you again to the flash of promise she had proven in ‘Shuddh Desi Romance’: the movie didn’t want a lot overused stuffing as a result of these two appear fairly prepared to go the mile. In the long run, he’s the macho man beating different muscle-bound males in a contest of full-blown testosterone; she is simply one other woman prepared her man to convey the trophy house.