Do Aur Do Pyaar Review – Fuzzy Marital Math
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Director: Shirsha Guha Thakurta
Writers: Amrita Bagchi, Eisha Chopra, Suprotim Sengupta
If you ever want to go on a roller-coaster ride at a theme park, and the ride is already underway, you must wait for the train to come to a halt before you can step into your seats for the excitement ahead. Ever tried getting on a ride that’s already moving at a crazy speed on the tracks? Probably not. The biggest takeaway from the Bollywood film “Do Aur Do Pyaar” is: don’t get involved with a married person if you’re looking for a long-term relationship. It’s like trying to get onto a moving roller coaster; in the rare chance that you manage to get onto a seat, you’re likely to fall on the tracks before you get to strap yourself to safety.
“Do Aur Do Pyaar” opens with snapshots of Mumbai during monsoons, painting a romantic picture for viewers, complete with the soothing sounds of a soft patter. We first meet dentist Kavya Ganesan (Vidya Balan) having a flirtatious conversation with her photographer boyfriend Vikram (Sendhil Ramamurthy) at a restaurant.
“Love is like a toothpaste,” Vikram tells Kavya.
“Toothpaste? Love is like a toothpaste?” the dentist laughs, amused.
“You ever watch a couple brushing their teeth together? It’s more intimate than sex,” Vikram responds while fiddling with his camera.
Their banter is easy-flowing, and Kavya and Vikram look genuinely smitten with each other. Soon, the scene switches to a tense conversation between Anirudh Banerjee (Pratik Gandhi) and Nora (Ileana D’Cruz). They are also in love with each other, even though the sparks feel milder. But it is Anirudh and Kavya are married to each other, and they’re both secretly having an affair outside of their 12-year marriage, which has been reduced to discussing trash and medicines in the last few years. Their new partners are aware of their marital status, each seeking a divorce for a fresh start. However, Anirudh and Kavya keep finding ways to postpone what might be inevitable. Or maybe fate has different plans for them.
For the first 30 minutes, “Do Aur Do Pyaar” is a straightforward yet engaging tale about a married couple who are no longer in love with each other, yet too scared to admit the evident truth. But the screenplay begins to get slightly confusing once Anirudh decides to accompany Kavya to her hometown for a funeral, instead of telling her he wants to break up.
“Why do you want to come? You are nobody’s favourite,” Kavya asks him, not mincing any words about not needing his company. But their out-of-town trip to Ooty helps viewers understand the couple’s history and Kavya’s fraught relationship with her parents, especially her doctor father Venkat (Thalaivasal Vijay). To make things worse, he looks down upon Anirudh’s family business that deals with corks. Expect a lot of pronunciation jokes about corks. In Ooty, a lot of Kavya’s family is surprised that the couple is still together, which of-course is funnily ironical. The writers swing between clever modern jokes and tired boring cliches about what marriages are like.
Even though the trip subplot didn’t make much sense at first, it sets the ground for a major plot twist and changes in dynamics between Kavya and Anirudh. Pratik Gandhi is convincing as Anirudh, an exhausted working man looking to escape his mundane marriage with a gorgeous model. However, Nora’s attraction towards him becomes a question mark because the character (Anirudh) is quite unlikeable. He has no charm, lacks a spine, and even though the latter can be said for Kavya too, there’s a scene that makes him worse: Nora anxiously reveals to him that she might be pregnant, and a flustered Anirudh asks, “Must be mine?”. In a fitting response, Nora throws him out. Meanwhile, Kavya’s chemistry with Vikram, an international photographer, seems far more romantic. So, moral conundrums aside, Anirudh’s chaotic character makes it easy to root for Kavya and Vikram to end up together.
The second half of “Do Aur Do Pyaar” gets slightly contrived and repetitive, but it’s the actors who keep things entertaining, especially Vidya Balan as the bubbly dentist Kavya. Ileana D’Cruz is also disarmingly cute as model/actor Nora, whose character is a likable balance of both mature sensibilities and childish capriciousness. Sendhil Ramamurthy, as a photographer who largely lived in Cuba and New York, makes an interesting choice for the handsome stranger who snares Kavya into a dreamy affair. The climax is open-ended, and doesn’t give a definitive happy ending to anybody, which might be disappointing for those who prefer clear closures in their movies. While I do enjoy ambiguous endings, I too was hoping for a more conclusive last act.
While “Do Aur Do Pyaar” attempts to explore a few complex themes pertaining to relationships, the direction is largely easy-going in tone, with plenty of low-key comical moments. Its eventual message is straightforward: lack of communication is the biggest disruptor of relationships. This, notwithstanding the clever Groucho Marx quote the movie begins with: “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?”.
You can watch “Do Aur Do Pyaar” on Disney Hotstar.
Read Next: Maharaj Review – Engaging addition to the OMG-verse
Also Read: Mother-Daughter Murder Night Book Review (Audio version below)
