Cast: Karan Mehta, Alaya F, Vicky Kaushal
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Rating: Three stars (out of 5)
Turning a genre on its head, Anurag Kashyap crafts a romantic comedy that explores the elusive, nebulous nature of love and the limits of its potential to serve as a bulwark against patriarchy and conservatism. Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat, as quirky a film as the title suggests, seeks to capture the pitfalls of youthful rebellion in a society riven by differences and at the mercy of dyed-in-the-wool forces.
Two parallel stories, not so much about romance as about discovering oneself and casting off the shackles of tradition, constitute the film. One track plays out in Dalhousie, the other in London. Both pairs of lovers are played by Alaya F. and debutant Karan Mehta, with Vicky Kaushal, in a special appearance as the eponymous DJ, serving as the link between the two plots as a narrator-commentator holding forth on the many-splendoured thing has never been easy to wrap one's head around.
Does Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat bite off more than it can chew? Parts of the film may suggest that it does, but none of the points that Kashyap's screenplay makes is without substance and merit. Besides patriarchy, which, of course, is the fount of all ills, the film has religious prejudice, the class divide, homophobia and a society resistant to change in the line of its fire.
The film ends with the hope that mohabbat se hi toh kranti aayegi, articulated through an anthem-like song. Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat gives big ups for the power of love to demolish hurdles and dismantle mothballed worldviews. In support of its assertions, it goes back to a number from a Hindi film from nearly four decades - Saanson se nahin kadmon se nahin mohabbat se chalti hai duniya. That is the belief that the film puts to the test.
Early in the film, DJ Mohabbat points to the virtues of vulnerability. It isn't weakness, not at all, he says. Vulnerability is like a bright sun on a cold winter day - its rays are soft and almost imperceptible. It is only when night arrives and the chill returns that one realises how soothingly warm the sun was. The story of love found and lost, the film suggests, is not too different.
The two young men in the film are defined primarily by their susceptibilities. One is cheerful, the other is habitually pensive. Neither is cocky. Their unassuming ways are, however, no shield against foul influences.
The two on-the-cusp-of-adulthood girls aren't inured to the schisms of the world either, but they are significantly less hobbled by doubts and misgivings until trouble erupts. All the world loves a lover, but this clearly isn't that world.
Ayesha, a London billionaire's daughter, is smitten by the self-effacing Harmeet, a nightclub DJ. The girl's ardour far outstrips that of the boy, whose lack of enthusiasm threatens to drive a wedge between the two. Harmeet is focused on making it as a musician and does not respond in kind to Ayesha's feelers. But love has a way of asserting itself.
In Dalhousie, schoolgirl Amrita is drawn to Yaqub despite the class-and-culture divide that separates them. The girl cites Mirza Ghalib and Amrita Pritam. The unlettered Yaqub is foxed. Their backgrounds do not match, but they are naturally yoked to each other by their passion for DJ Mohabbat.
In both stories, a patriarch plays spoilsport. One of the two boys runs away with the girl he instinctively hits off with, the other tries to run away from the girl who has fallen head over heels for him. Neither can avoid running into obstacles as love, or something akin to it, grips them.
Amid the toxicity of a conservative and cynical society that sees inter-faith love only through the prism of politics and predispositions, the young represent a ray of hope, a belief that rising above the constricting realities of the time is in the realms of possibility. But what lies is ahead of the lovers isn't just a personal battle but a full-fledged war to reclaim the ground that has been taken away from them in recent years.
Almost Pyaar by DJ Mohabbat is a robust musical with a politically-inflected, hip-hoppy core. Defiant and doughty in its celebration of ishq with all its confusions and complexities, the film makes wonderful use of Amit Trivedi's musical score and Shellee's lyrics to produce a cri de coeur that deserves to be heard and heeded.
Among the many questions that the Vicky Kaushal character raises in the course of the film, one pertains to the fact that the boundaries of society determine the course, substance and fate of young love. Can the human heart change the ossified thinking of people whose honour rides on the relationships that youngsters forge in defiance of imposed codes of behaviour.
Duniya aisi kyun hai, asks the sprightly Amrita, who has a YouTube avatar as a niqab-sporting Saloni ammi and takes pot shots at the orthodox world she inhabits - a hat-tip to the real-life Saloni Gaur's Nazma Aapi. Amrita's admiration for DJ Mohabbat, who has announced a concert in the hills of Himachal Pradesh on Holi, enthuses Amrita to plan an escapade with Yaqub. It sets the cat among the pigeons.
Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat pushes rom-com conventions into uncharted territory and cannot, therefore, dodge a its share of wobbles. But, overall, it is a film that gives a love story strong legs to stand on and run. Run it does in a direction that tales of young love rarely do.
First-timer Karan Mehta gives a solid account of himself playing two men in a constant tussle with themselves and the world around them, but it is Alaya F, tapping the energy and range that she demonstrated in her debut film Jawaani Jaaneman, who shines bright and walks away with large parts of the film.
Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat is a musical love story with a spin on it that liberates it from the constraints of the genre.