Straight off the platinum bat, ‘Gehraiyaan’ (Depths) reveals how different it is from the hackneyed mainstream tedium. The tone is restrained, the story is mature and flows for the most part like a constant cool breeze, and crass commercial elements are conspicuously absent.
For a Deepika Padukone film, it bravely has no songs at all. Two young pairs of lovers head out and relax at a beach villa, while unbidden currents of attraction arise between lady and gent from either side, this secretly developing liaison propelling the eddies and currents of the tangled tale. One thing which audiences will have to accept in order to buy into the story is that the film mostly transpires amongst wealthy players, there being no iron-clad rule that all Indian movies must take place amongst the financially modest. ‘Gehraiyaan’ only stumbles into shallow shenanigans when this subtle drama tries to be a melodrama at a later stage – there’s nothing wrong with melodrama per se, but be who you are.
Sadly too, the praise peters out when the narrative chooses to resolve a finely spun, emotionally complex story with a legally punishable heinous crime to forcibly tidy things up. It becomes a cop-out, taking out the hard work of letting threads organically run.
Alisha (Deepika Padukone) and Karan (Dhairya Karwa) are a young couple. So are Alisha’s cousin Tia (Ananya Panday) and Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi). Alisha struggles to make her yoga coaching app successful, having invested six to seven lakh rupees into it, while unemployed Karan aspires to have his first novel published. Zain and Tia are both wealthy, Zain in particular chalking up business deals running into hundreds of crores whereas Tia’s familial wealth affords her a carefree cushion.
On a leisurely outing of the two pairs, Zain and Alisha develop a quick chemistry and begin an affair unknown to their partners. Zain finances Alisha’s app plans and then keeps telling her he will break it off with Tia, but for deeply universal reasons, he keeps procrastinating. And when things truly boileth over, it becomes almost impossible to tell Tia (moral of the story : Do not balance your feet on two separate yachts).
The film’s foremost strengths are its layered storyline and assured direction. The screenplay, straddled by no less than four screen-writers (a rare example of multiple cooks sparing the broth), is equally skillful with romantic depictions and the ruthlessness of corporate dealsmanship. Wealth barriers rear their awkward head as when Zain and Tia, after their yacht romp, pop up as a surprise into Alisha’s modest apartment (which nonetheless is roomier than many Mumbai flats) and the latter silently glowers at this embarrassment. Zain thinks he is a corporate king, but when the commercial broilers come home to roost, he does not really anticipate his shellacking. The story pulls no artificial punches, content to let the messiness play out, until it loses its marbles in the last quarter.
Another area where the film loses steam (the puritans will not agree with me) is in the coy love-making scenes. Padukone, as the Indian Savitri, can only go so far on celluloid and the no holds barred carnal acts that Japanese, Taiwanese or Latin American films would hit you with, are tamely absent here. If India’s actual populace were similarly shy, its population would be much lower.
The environs of few other Indian films have looked so consistently upscale, with wood-paneled luxury apartments, marble bathrooms and large yachts courtesy T.P Abid’s production design and Dharma Productions' might, all captured with cool sophistication and light tones by Kaushal Shah. Kabeer Kathpalia and Savera Mehta’s beautifully understated background score plays as pleasantly as silent air conditioning.
Acting across the board is excellent, with bonuses like Rajat Kapoor’s powerful turn at the end. Deepika Padukone deserves praise for not hijacking the film as many other star actors do, and while detractors continue to pillory her for monetizing the mental illness and depression aspect, I do not see such chicanery at play. This is a fine example of modern Indian cinema – Great work, Amazon, at picking this up ! May you and Netflix duel it out along these lines, while we, the audience, are happy to be the third victor.