Gehraiyaan movie review: Deepika Padukone’s deep dive into lies, love and dark secrets drowns at places!

Movie: Gehraiyaan

Director: Shakun Batra

Cast: Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Dhairya Karwa with Naseeruddin Shah and Rajat Kapoor in supporting roles.

Human relationships are complex, and one film might not be enough to untangle the mystery behind it. However, kudos to director Shakun Batra for attempting to delve deeper and try pulling it offshore.

Gehraiyaan tells the story of 4 individuals – Alisha (Deepika Padukone), Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi), Tia (Ananya Panday) and Karan (Dhairya Karwa). Al aka Alisha, a yoga instructor is troubled – leads her life with the baggage of her past, start-up plan to launch an app, struggles to meet her ends. Karan, her writer boyfriend of 6 years is trying hard to get his book published.

The high waves of expectations in their relationship often wreak havoc, and that we see as the screenplay moves forward.

Cut to Tia, Al’s first cousin and a well-off US-returned suave lucky girl. She has had the best of everything, or so it seems. Tia invites Al and Karan, who basically are childhood friends, to a short trip and introduces them to her fiance Zain – the guy, who is flamboyant, impressive and yes flirtatious too. He has risen to a level and is rearing to go ahead – is ambitious and wants to earn big.

Eyes meet, sparks fly, and eventually, bodies meet too. After a little harmless flirting here and there, texting and little secrets kept from respective partners – it boils down to infidelity.

But director Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan is more than just a story about infidelity. He has tried to touch upon it and slowly move onto a bigger picture of strained relations and how psychologically the mind works.

The narrative tries to dig deeper, with roaring waves symbolising tumultuous inner thoughts – we get to see a closer picture of how troubled a human being can be without appearing from the surface level.

The background track, cinematography – both play a pivotal part in making Gehraiyaan stand out from the crowd. The story of these 4 individuals goes through many ups and downs – much like the high tides but we are not giving away any spoiler.

We see Gully Boy’s Siddhant Chaturvedi in a new light as Zain but there’s much more to him. Despite him trying hard, the chemistry between Zain and Alisha didn’t look deep enough – maybe it’s the screen time of 2 hours 30 mins which kind of cut it short or was it deliberate for that kind of love? We might never know.

Deepika as Al is impressive, strong and shines in this complex web of lies, love and dark secrets. She emotes and we relate. Ananya too is a perfect cast for Tia’s character. She looks convincing and does justice to her part.

Full marks to the costume and styling team for making everyone look so classy and trendy.

It’s Naseeruddin Shah, who has the least screen time yet with his power acting lifts the film to another level. His scenes with Alisha are electric and deep – that’s where you actually feel Gehraiyaan more than anywhere else.

Also, Rajat Kapur as Zain’s business partner fits the bill and after a long time, we get to see him in his element.

Dhairya Karwa is like the guy-next-door, someone you probably know of as a friend. He is there and adds some light moments to the screenplay but his character is not backed with strong writing.

Director Shakun Batra is clearly inspired – Hollywood and South Korean style of filming and presentation can be felt but it comes as a breather. However, the pace sometimes distracts and its ungratifying climax makes it a curious case of writing.

Watch Gehraiyaan to explore human relations from a third-person perspective – a window into ‘their’ lives unravelling secrets, lies and lingering moments of love.