Dil Dosti etc. - review

One thing is for sure, the answer to love, sex and everything is not 42!

The one word I can come up with, that completely explains how I feel about the movie, is ‘Intriguing’. The movie is not about telling something in 3 hours and concluding it. It is more like, telling a lot of stuff in just 3 hours and leaving you to think and think and think.

There is a clash of ideals, a bouquet of personalities, some emotions and a lot of intrigue. For once, it seems that the story is getting nowhere, and the movie should have been called ‘a week in the life of a Delhi university boy’, but as one reel feeds into another, the story starts clearing up, and your head begins to muddle.

There is Shreyas Talpade as Sanjay Mishra, the Bihari guy who has a set of fixed ideals and thinks of love to be pure and divine; but this does not essentially make him a puritan. Imaad Shah, as the rich and confused Apurv, who does not think of love, he does not think of sex; he does it; apparently he has no ideals, but by the end of the movie, you’re not too sure. Then there is Kintu (Ishitaa Sharma), the very natural school-girl who knows the rights and wrongs of life, or atleast she thinks so; Prerna(Nikita Anand), the very normal girlfriend, and Vaishali(Smriti Mishra) the prostitute; All of them adding numerous dimensions to the one single question of love, sex and everything. Or dil dosti etc. as the director would like to put it.

Sanjay Tiwari turns a very strange script ( if I may call it that) into what one might call, an excellent movie. Produced by Prakash Jha, who is famed with making ‘real’ films, this one is real indeed. Excellent camera work and an almost perfect execution of scenes make the movie a pleasure to watch, the story just flows. But I won’t extend the accolades to the music, which is pretty ordinary. A couple of more scenes could have built the story stronger foundations, but I guess the shaky base was intended.

Imaad Shah merits special appreciation, because he’s not the novice actor he’s supposed to be. He fits into character as it is himself he’s playing and not a scripted role. Shreyas Talpade continues to impress with his flawless acting, and the same goes for Smriti Mishra. They’re naturals.

Puritans will reject the movie with sneers of the tone ‘Dekha, the young generation is going to the dogs, we told you!’, the ‘youth’ will hail the movie as their real story; but the audience the director is looking for will be few.
Neverthless, go for the movie, to see great acting, a very novel storyline, and to find out if you are one of those audiences the director is trying to address.



PS: respect the A tag of the movie :)