DO AUR DO PYAAR: A spiritless take on extra-marital affairs

By

Sharada Iyer

Debutante director Shirsha Guha Thakurta delivers a very dull and boring narrative on marital and extra-marital relationships which has neither chutzpah, nor sizzle nor comedy, not even heavy-duty emotion to hold the viewer’s interest in the plot as well as the characters. Even the duration of 2 hours 17 minutes seems very long because the proceedings are really slow and the film never really takes off.  And the sad part is that the film had two brilliant actors- Prateik Gandhi and Vidya Balan, and yet the movie falters big time at various levels.

Prateik Gandhi and wife Vidya Balan play a modern-day couple in their late thirties and have drifted apart after 12 years of marriage and 3 years of dating prior to that. She is a Tamilian and he is a Bengali. Bits and parts of the flashback show that they had gone against her family’s wishes to tie the knot and her father continues to nurse his grudge against her. However, 12 years later, it is shown that they have lost interest in each other and lead robotic asexual lives.

To keep their respective love lives kindled, they decide to find romance outside their marriage. Prateik is attracted to a wannabe actress played by Ileana D’Cruz, and Vidya is happy cozying up with photographer Sendhil Ramamurthy. They keep making make plans to tell each other about their affairs and end their marriage but when they confront each other at home, they don’t have the guts to spill the beans and take such a drastic step. They seem to enjoy their relationship status quo much to the chagrin of their lovers.

Unexpectedly, a death in the family throws the husband-wife duo together forcibly as they decide to attend the funeral in her hometown Ooty. Since they are returning home after 12 years there is an atmosphere of tension with the family members who for some strange reason are continuously gossiping behind their back. Her father continues to be morose and rude and does not seem one bit happy to see them both. There are some ‘supposedly humorous’ scenes during this stay but somehow these do not sit well against the backdrop of a death.

Amidst all this gloom and pathos somehow Prateik and Vidya end up rediscovering their relationship, start enjoying each other’s company and realize there is still some spark left in their relationship. A sexual tension is created between the two and soon after they get back from their home town, they cannot keep their hands off each other!!! And now they start cooking up excuses to avoid meeting their respective lovers Ileana and Sendhil, and feel thrilled cheating on them to be with each other.

Just as they feel they can maybe get their marriage back working, they come to know of each other’s affairs through indirect sources and this catches them off-guard. While Prateik is shown to be shocked and hurt, Vidya goes on a terribly angry mode spewing venom. They start fighting and the scenes are laughable because few scenes back both were blissfully having affairs and ready to call off their marriage and now this kind of juvenile behaviour made no sense. It looked like they themselves did not know what they wanted.

They finally decide to end their marriage and be with their lovers. Wait! If you think the senseless saga had ended, you are mistaken… we are shown a scene at the end which says ‘one year later’… and lo and behold! our couple is back with each other again. So, what happened to sour the relationship with their lovers? Nothing is shown properly. How did they meet their lovers in the first place and now suddenly how and why did it all end?

The whole thing in handled in a superficial, contrived, and unconvincing manner. The story drags on, the scenes are slow, dialogues are forgettable and the infidelity aspect is not dealt with any dynamism. Towards the end, things are hurried up and the lovers conveniently disappear to make way for Vidya and Prateik.

The film deals with extra-marital affair and yet the biggest drawback of the film is that there is no chemistry either between the lead pair Vidya Balan and Prateik Gandhi or between the two sets of lovers- Ileana-Prateik and Vidya-Sendhil. After a point we feel so disconnected with the immature behaviour of all four characters that we really don’t care who ends up with whom.

For the first time I felt Vidya Balan was overacting. Somehow trying to be too chirpy as the lover and later the love-struck wife she was too loud and not very convincing. And where was the need to add a tangential angle to this mess involving her disturbed relationship with her father? Those scenes had no impact and Vidya just could not convey the right emotions. Ileana’s acting left much to be desired. She was screaming too much and rolling her eyes in every scene and had the same expression throughout. Sendhil Ramamurthy was a pleasant surprise and fit the role well.

The only redeeming feature of this otherwise dull film is the superb acting by Prateik Gandhi. This actor seems to be soaring high with every film. He is just too good! He plays his role in such an understated and nuanced way and in many places his natural acting reminds one of Sanjeev Kumar.

Even though Prateik tries to put a lot of extra effort to spruce up the script, sadly there will not be many viewers watching him thanks to the listless narrative. I watched the first day first show and only 12 people were there in the cinema hall. From what I have read, the box-office collections after 6 days continue to be low.

[Note: Images are taken from the internet]