Do Aur Do Pyaar movie review: Vidya Balan is the soul of this mushy, messy tale

Do Aur Do Pyaar movie review: It’s okay to fall out of love. It’s okay to fall in love again with someone else, outside the marriage.

It’s definitely okay to move out if the marriage has reached a dead end. And it’s again okay if you want to give it a second chance to your marriage. Do Aur Do Pyaar touches upon all these dynamics in a relationship, and gives us a mushy, messy cocktail that’s high on love, sex, infidelity, betrayal, and conflict, which form the main pillars in a marriage and a relationship.

Do Aur Do Pyaar keeps everything, everyone genuine
Debut director Shirsha Guha Thakurta never explicitly underlines or tries to preach us on how to make a marriage work, or a lesson on how to break it. The film explores the complexities of modern-day relationships, and dilemmas that couples — in a marriage and affair — go through, making this slice-of-life romantic comedy extremely relatable. Unlike films that present larger-than-life characters that look so made-up, Do Aur Do Pyaar keeps everything, and everyone genuine. The things they talk about, their problems, their fights are real, and never struggle to keep you invested.

The premise
Kavya Ganeshan (Vidya Balan) and Anirudh Bannerjee (Pratik Gandhi) are married for 12 years, after three years of dating. In a heated argument, we see Kavya yelling that she hates his favourite dish ‘begun posto’ (spiced eggplant). He gives it back throwing some utensils expressing his disliking for ‘stainless steel bartan’. But how did their marriage reach this point? In an earlier sequence at a resto-bar, we see Kavya telling Anirudh that it’s important to keep fighting to keep a relationship alive. By that logic, they should be pretty sorted, and they, on the same page.

Meanwhile, both are having an extra-marital affair, and looking for the perfect moment to come clean in front of each other. Kavya is building dreams with a hot photographer Vikram (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who has left everything in New York and wants Kavya to move in with him in a new sea-facing apartment.

Anirudh has found love in Nora aka Rosie (Ileana D’Cruz), a theatre actor, who at one point gets pregnant with his child. While the pressure continues to build from their paramours to confess to their respective partners about the external relationships, Kavya and Anirudh are confused, and torn between the two dead-ends not knowing which direction to go in. Despite the truth that their marriage is no longer working, they end up reigniting romance in a rather unexpected turn of events — at a funeral to be precise. Do they regret it? Or does it help them get closer once again? Do they continue cheating? Or does it become even more complex?

Dialogues are not over-the-top yet leave an impact
Spanning 2 hours 12 minutes, the beauty of Do Aur Do Pyaar is that it tells us the reality of most relationships and marriages struggling to survive in an urban landscape. The self-inflicted doubts and frustration that these characters are dealing with, strikes an instant chord. The film briefly mentions the issue of inter-caste marriage, when we are told that Kavya is a runaway bride as her Tamilian family didn’t accept her Bengali boyfriend. The whole portion when Kavya and Pratik visit Ooty to attend her grandfather’s funeral, we see a lot of light-hearted humour, emotions and that’s when you realise the power of nuanced and intelligent writing, so full credit to Amrita Bagchi for dialogues that never sound too over-the-top yet leave an impact and trigger laughs.

The performances
Vidya delivers a top-notch performance, and while her laughter is infectious and comic timing bang on, she is equally impressive in emotionally charged scenes. Though there’s no song and dance sequence in the film, I loved her no-holds-barred moves while dancing at the resto-bar letting her hair down in a saree.

Pratik is a revelation, once again, and truly a delight portraying a character that’s intense yet so carefree. There’s an ease with which he brings comedy to his dialogues, and he holds his ground flawlessly in scenes with Vidya. Sendhil brings a sense of calm to the fast-paced narrative, and his expressions do a lot more talking. A few funny one-liners when he tries to talk in Hindi put a smile on your face. Ileana is decent but her character arch, I felt, needed a far better depth and writing, as compared to Sendhil’s layered character.

Final thoughts
Written by Suprotim Sengupta and Eisha Chopra, the film that’s primarily about broken marriages and infidelity, Do Aur Do Pyaar also beautifully weaves a father-daughter relationship and how it goes through its own complex journey. A sequence where Kavya is arguing with her father for being a staunch patriarch, for looking down upon her for being a dentist and not a doctor, it’s such a well-written and well-performed scene. Later, when they open their hearts, share a hug and discuss their feelings, the whole sequence moves you.

Do Aur do Pyaar isn’t just a satirical take on modern-day couples and their relationships, neither it’s a frivolous rom-com that never delves into real issues. It’s a far mature, and somewhat bold tale that expresses and explores the rawness of relationships, keeping the humour element at the core. Watch it for some easy breezy and endearing performances, and storytelling that’s simple yet so impactful.

Movie: Do Aur Do Pyaar

Cast: Vidya Balan, Pratik Gandhi, Ileana D’Cruz, Sendhil Ramamurthy

Director: Shirsha Guha Thakurta