Gehraiyaan Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Today, let’s talk about Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan. Starring Deepika Padukone as an impossible goddess, Ananya Pandey as the most Ananya Pandey, Siddhant Chaturvedi as every bad decision I made in my 20s, and Dhairya Karwa as actor mostly missing from major promotions.
Meet 2 urban Mumbai(s). One where people named Zain and Tia, live in a high-rise building, go to their Alibaug beach house for the weekends and lease yachts from the Gateway for business meetings.
On the other hand, there’s Karan, and Tia’s not-so-rich cousin Alisha. They tie up garbage bags to leave them on the stairs outside and haggle with brokers to find budget-appropriate apartments. All 4 people, late 20s/early 30s, figuring themselves out, the sides they like and parts they don’t.
Zain has earned his own money, through whatever means, but doesn’t feel like he belongs in a relationship where his fiancé wants to get married in Tuscany. Alisha, who grew up with Tia, is ashamed of her lack of money and material wealth compared to her cousin, and also feels like perhaps she’s entitled to a better life.
Zain, whose name starts with the last letter of the alphabet, and Alisha, whose starts with the first, realize their needs meet exactly in the middle. They start an illicit affair, both cheating on their partners, leading to a complete collapse of the entire house of cards.
Shakun Batra and co-writer Ayesha Devitre, Sumit Roy, and Yash Sahai’s philandering characters take root in this middle space, this overlap. Between a free-for-all beach and an inherited beach house.
Between the sea and land, the spot where waves finally crash and rest for a brief bit, before being dragged back into the sea. Between expensive personal trainers and humble yoga. This middle ground materializes as a yacht, a home defying logic and floating unsteadily on unpredictable waters instead of standing on solid ground.
This ambiguous place in the middle is unsettling by design. Its inhabitants Zain and Alisha are gorgeously unsettled, and they immediately identify each other. In some scenes, you hear them talk but don’t see their lips move, almost like they are hearing each other’s thoughts, words ki zaroorat nahi hai.
When they’re falling for each other Nitesh Bhatia’s editing is chaotic, almost indiscriminate, mumblecore…? Quick cuts, Kaushal Shah’s camera is hand-held, unsteadily tottering, jumping axis, lurking behind doors.
His lens is in love with these softly lit actors, professional stunners, bodies polished and groomed to perfection, symmetrical faces even without makeup.
Ananya Pandey’s bright florals to Deepika’s plain athleisure. Karan’s playful printed shirts to Zain’s monochromes, the couples are badly matched on every level, costume designer Anaita Shroff Adjania makes sure of it.
Partly thanks to her, Alisha walks into rooms and situations looking great, but squirming on the inside, unaware of herself, and it’s almost frustrating to watch someone so staggeringly gorgeous treat themselves this badly when they could have the world at their feet if they desired.
Deepika Padukone has a great ability to express vulnerability and meekness, despite her tall overbearing stature, the same build which she also uses to the exact opposite effect in movies like Piku and Padmaavat.
Alisha is not a likable character at all, which becomes clearer as more story plot points are revealed, but I’m a sucker for an actor authentically and impactfully able to express silently debilitating anxiety.
I’m still not the biggest fan of her dialogue delivery tho, her spoken Hindi sounds unnatural and forced at times. In fact, if I had to take issue with something in the film, it is some of the dialogue, which feels stilted, especially in the first half, when we’re first getting to know everyone.
Siddhant Chaturvedi is Zain, think of him as the Fyre festival guy, if he was also cheating on his fiancé. A manchild with an aggressively groomed beard, he’s aware of his impact on women, overcompensating for his own bad decision making, by attempting to take everyone down with him. It’s a pretty great performance and it’s delightful to see how capable he is of creating completely new people with each role.
Ananya Pandey’s Tia, by her own admission, is very close to the kind of person one imagines Ananya Pandey is IRL. A fine and perfectly acceptable performance, she’s the girl who wonders why her fiancé has been ignoring her while absentmindedly eating edamame. The other half of Mumbai that Alisha aspires to live like.
Dhairya Karwa as Karan flows in and out of the screenplay, seamlessly as the songs do. Like the name of his character, he has an every-boy look, easy to ignore, easy to confuse with someone else, but also very likable. Sweet, unassuming, uncorrupted. Hoping to see more of the guy.
Naseeruddin Shah plays Alisha’s father and it’s a freaking testament to the man’s sheer caliber that it's only in his limited scenes my stoic resolve of not crying, finally broke a bit. A stiff leg, old sad eyes, an unhappy single, loner, ailing, slightly confused father is a thing of pity, and the fine-fine actor sells every bit of it. Such an honor watching him act, uff.
Gehraiyaan might keep you waiting outside the door for about 20 odd minutes, but when that door finally opens and you’re done admiring the exterior of the house, it’ll keep you warm inside until it’s time to leave. Watch this film on Amazon Prime Video starting today.
