Shahid Kapoor and Rashmika Mandanna have been a couple for such a long time that she feels she needs to test whether he’s still in love with her. That’s where Kriti Sanon comes in. The resulting triangle looks forced and feels like something that just needs a quick conversation to fix the mess. But it goes on and on, being neither funny enough, crazy enough, or deep enough. That’s the quick review. A longer analysis follows, and it may contain spoilers.
Cocktail was released in 2012, and it gave me one of my all-time-great vacation experiences, though in a vicarious way. Every once in a while, when I feel stuck, I watch Tumhi ho bandhu and everything seems right with the world again. The combination of the amazing location and the amazing cinematography by Anil Mehta and the amazing editing by Sreekar Prasad and the amazing freedom in Diana Penty’s discovery of her own self – everything’s just perfect. And sometimes, that’s all you want from a movie: pretty people in pretty clothes in pretty places that remove us from reality for a while. The sequel, also directed by Homi, comes with the same promise – some triangular confusion between Kunal, Diya, and Ally, played by Shahid Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna, and Kriti Sanon. The sun of Sicily, an interlude in a vineyard, artfully designed clothes – all gift-wrapped into a vicarious holiday package by Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran’s camera! I mean, what can go wrong?
As it turns out, quite a bit. This sequel is written by Luv Ranjan and Tarun Jain, and the mix of screwball comedy and heartfelt drama and half-cooked observations about relationships feels like it needed a director like Luv Ranjan himself. Say what you will about his gender politics, the man knows how to keep the pot boiling. He knows how to entertain. Homi Adajania, on the other hand, tries to make a “classy movie”, and that’s the problem. The material is simply not as deep as what we saw in the first film. Remember that scene where Saif Ali Khan is attracted to Diana Penty, and he says they should not act on that impulse, but his expressions are practically pleading with her to say they should go ahead? That’s not this movie, where everyone acts like a teenager who just needs someone to shake their shoulders and ask them to go and stand in a corner.
Consider the premise. Kunal and Diya have been in love from their school days, and now they have the comfort level that you have with your weathered old armchair. It’s not “exciting” anymore, and when Kunal (who cannot handle alcohol) blurts out something about having an affair, Diya is concerned. She asks her friend Ally to seduce Kunal. If he resists, he’s still a good guy. This sounds like the relationship equivalent of someone trying out poison to see if they will really die! Ally is one of those gorgeous free spirits you find only in the movies. She moves from job to job, city to city, man to man, because sameness is boring. But of course, she falls in love with Kunal and we wait for what happens. Given that Ally is an impossible character, Kriti plays her with an incredible amount of grace and manages to find small moments of truth in scenes as ridiculous as the one where she challenges Diya to a fight. She says that she will fight for Kunal because until the wedding, nothing’s really fixed or final.
The implication is that once Kunal and Diya get married, the deal is done and nothing can break it – but way back in Love Aaj Kal, Imtiaz Ali showed us that wedding rituals mean nothing if the heart belongs to someone else. Cocktail 2 cannot decide if it wants to be traditional or modern, and even if we assume it says we are all a big messy mix of old values and new impulses, the writing doesn’t make a very good case for it. In the early portions, Diya and Ally come across like schoolgirls planning a prank. Diya’s dominating nature is treated like a huge flaw, when all it needs is a bit of conversation, the kind mature couples in grown-up relationships have. Kunal says he does not want to marry because society expects him to. But he’s okay with marriage because Diya proposes to him, and he doesn’t want to hurt her. Again, where’s the conversation? These are all valid situations, but the film makes them look like non-events. Shahid is very good in a scene towards the end, but again, as with Ally, we seem to be going with the actor’s conviction rather than the conviction in the writing. Pritam’s music is not up to what he delivered in the first part, but at least it has adrenalin and keeps the movie moving. Romantic confusion is fine, but Cocktail 2 feels like a silly game. By the end, you don’t care who loses , who wins.
