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'Shubh Mangal Zyaada Savdhaan' (2020), written and directed by Hitesh Kewalya, is like a unicorn: I spent most of the film open-mouthed at the fact that I was getting to see such a thing on screen, accompanied by my mother and surrounded by middle-class families, who were laughing along and never once squeamed at not one but two long lip-locks between two men on the big screen.
We are introduced to the couple--played by Ayushmann Khurana and Jitendra Kumar respectively--without much fanfare. We are given no context as to how or why they fell in love or when and how they found out about their homosexuality. They are two people in love, and that's that. This is the film's biggest strength, as it treats this relationship with the dignity and respect it deserves, never resorting to caricature, especially of the kind that insinuates that one or both partners are effeminate.
Kartik played by Ayushmann, is the more flamboyant one, and within the first few scenes, his partner Aman's father, has caught them in the act. From then on, the film echoes 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge' (1995), embarking viewers on Kartik's mission to gain acceptance for the relationship from the partner's family. Setting this film squarely in the over-the-top Bollywood family saga gives it great scope to mine the subject for laughs. Yet, with the exception of one scene, the laughs are never had at the gay characters' expense. Instead, in a clever reversal, most of the humour comes from zooming in to the absurd and often outlandish attempts made by the parents and the family to steer Aman away from his lover and their exaggerated reactions. In fact, the relationship reveal becomes a means for other socially-sanctioned facades to drop, leading to havoc in the family as old skeletons come to light. We learn of old lovers, crushed professional ambitions, dual lives and even latent explorations with alternate sexuality by the older generation.
Aman's parents (played to perfection by Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta-the latter is especially a delight), who refuse to accept his reality, resort to everything from religious conversion to violence to a forced marriage to try and "set him straight". Critics would argue that treating such serious issues with humour trivializes them. But then dark humour is not always to everyone's taste. In a telling line at the end of the film, Kartik turns to his father-in-law and says "Look what happens when you spend your whole life covering up your truth for fear of what people will say: in trying to thwart us you have inadvertently turned yourself into the laughing stock of the town." This film knows who we are to laugh at, and redirects us if we don't.
The two female characters, played by Maanvi Gagroo and Pankhuri Awasthy, also bring home the pressures that patriarchy places on straight women within its oppressive system. The former, who turns her back on her only chance at marriage--an old man--learns how to love herself. But the character is not explored enough in depth to bring home this message of self-love alongside queer love. That an attempt was made must be applauded.
There are lots of things that do not work in this film, yet for the very many that do this film is deserving of applause. It is not a film about homosexuality, but about homophobia, and in making the audience uncomfortable and asking it why it has laughed for so long at a whole community's torment, it shows our society a mirror. That it does so within the generic confines of Bollywood is no small feat. In taking on the long-embedded structures of toxic patriarchy implicitly embedded in films like 'DDLJ', 'Shubh Mangal Zyaada Savdhaan' makes a plea for live-let-live for people of all sexual orientations.
Genre: Comedy, Social drama
Language: Hindi Runtime: 2h Year of Release: 2020
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Hot take is a series in which I offer my first impressions of films from India and around the world.
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