Dhadak
*ing: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khatter, Ashutosh Rana,
Ankit Bisht, Shridhar Watsar, Aditya Kumar, Aishwarya Narkar, Kharaj Mukherjee
Rated: 6/10
The late Sridevi’s daughter’s launch vehicle Dhadak, constructed under the prestigious banner of Karan Johar, is a much too realism hung up romance with minimal heartbeat.
One would argue that any mount on honour is bound to be heavy on the heart but the entire effort here is to sanitise the ups and downs of the life and times of eloped lovers from caste bastions of India.
In his bid to not play to the gallery, the director keeps Dhadak much too sanitised from emotion which, in turn, takes a toll on not just the expected but missing chemistry between Ishaan and Jhanvi. The couple is shown to be so bogged down by the realities of survival in a strange far away city from home that the Dhadak becomes a casualty.
Yes the end is stunning and stark but the build-up to it is much too slow and entirely unlike the Marathi original Sairat from which this one had been adapted.
It is sad that Sridevi is not around to see her daughter being launched in Bollywood but had she been there she would not have been too happy with Jhanvi’s character construction in the film. Other than that, Jhanvi lacks a lot of her mother’s on-screen assets and may not be able to live up to the live wire screen personality of her late mother. Having said that, she does her best in Dhadak as the daughter of an upper class Rajput khandan in love with a lower caste boy.
The problem with the film is that it hesitated to deep dive into any issue it is dealing with, be it the deep and unforgiving caste divide or the torture that the family goes through once the progeny does what is considered impossible.
Ishaan, having the experience with a directorial heavyweight like Majid Majidi, sails through his role and comes across as a convincing Rajasthani youth who has no problem in crying or wanting to get out of the rut of a difficult romance.
Don’t go looking for a rollicking romance here. Dhadak is a mish-mash of everything and this nothing.