Manmarziyaan

*ing: Abhishek Bachchan, Vicky Kaushal, Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Arora

Rated: 6/10

Anurag Basu’s Manmarziyaan has a pace all its own and in its own way it compels you to sit through it with adequate interest in the unfolding modern love and relationships story.

I say modern but the theme is all pretty old. Your first love is generally not husband material but your heart never stops beating. The unsuitable boy who is always there to give you a life lesson in what you choose. Then there is a husband who is, well, totally husband material but the thing is that your heart seldom beats, misses a beat, for him.

Both relationships are at play here in all their colour and bloom. While, it is Taapsee Pannu is the central character of this engaging film, it is Vicky Kaushal who literally owns the footage whenever he is brought onto the screen. Kaushal is brilliant as the yo-yo-woh-woh-song lifting wannabe DJ from Amritsar who has no concept for commitment or responsibility. After the weight he brought to Raazi despite Alia’s dominating presence in that film, he gives Vicky the momentum he deserves as a good for nothing but aashiqui guy with commitment issues. As Vicky he shows up his daunting range of histrionics which will be shaping his career in the right direction.

Then there is Pannu as the brash pyar-fyaar dazzled girl with fire in her belly. She too lives the role of a bindaas Punjabi girl who has no qualms of emerging out of beds and romps in spaced out places like a ganney ka khet, her own barsati hanging over her mother’s kitchen or a makeshift bed in Vicky’s music studio with all his friends in the know.

Abhishek, on the other hand, is a picture of restraint and seems to be having difficulty in speaking his dialogues. Too many deliberations, too many pauses perhaps makes him Basu’s idea of perfect husband material but to the audience he comes across as a man with some kind of behavioural disability.

Together, however, the three make for a good story told well. It is different, it is blaze and it is not an assault to the eye.