{"id":3093,"date":"2016-05-26T10:27:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T04:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3093"},"modified":"2016-05-26T10:27:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T04:57:06","slug":"karwaan-review-dulquer-salmaan-irrfan-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3093","title":{"rendered":"Karwaan and the Road Less Travelled by Bollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p><\/div>

t one point in Akarsh Khurana\u2019s <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i>, Avinash Rajpurohit (<\/span>Dulquer Salmaan<\/span><\/a>) tells 18-year-old Tanya (Mithila Palkar) that photographing is about capturing a moment, and not \u201ccreating a moment out of everything\u201d unlike what Instagram addicts tend to believe. Somehow, it\u2019s also the best way to describe the film because through its 120-minute-long runtime, <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i> ends up doing a bit of both. <\/span>\n\nIn this scene for instance, it captures a clever generational divide between a world-weary, lonely, and almost judgemental 30-something, who\u2019s slowly becoming a mirror image of his<\/span> father<\/span><\/a>, and a millennial, who\u2019s stuck to her phone, and whose default currency is rebellion. But it also generates tender moments out of such a simple exchange: shy smiles, awkward body language, and a chance at expression.<\/span>\n\nThat\u2019s not to say that <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i> is flawless \u2013 it falters in a few places, especially in its first hour when it desperately tries to manufacture comedy in unfunny situations: Like Shaukat\u2019s (the inimitable <\/span>Irrfan Khan<\/span><\/a>) \u2013 a vagrant car mechanic \u2013 needless monologue with foreign tourists where he accuses them of not showering. Or milking his orthodox stance on Tanya\u2019s \u201cshort clothes\u201d as humour. There\u2019s a badly used triple talaq reference and a needless sub-plot with gangsters that I suspect only exists so that Irrfan can steal the scene with his deadpan eccentricity. It\u2019s hard to fault a director for wanting to include more scenes with an actor who squeezes laughs from the oddest of scenarios, glances, and lines such as \u201cMaiyyat pe romance matt kar.\u201d<\/span>\n\nDespite its shortcomings, <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i> still manages to be outlandishly novel. It\u2019s a feat, considering how cliched <\/span>road trips<\/span><\/a> can feel in Hindi films. Take Irrfan\u2019s filmography (<\/span>Piku, Qareeb Qareeb Single<\/span><\/i>) and Dulquer\u2019s career (<\/span>Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna, Kali<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> and<\/span> CIA: Comrade in America<\/span><\/i>) for instance. But <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i>, essentially a meditation on mortality, grief, and letting go, feels like an ingenious set up that births a terrific coming-of-age drama. Much of it is because Khurana lets the road trip take centrestage (Avinash Arun\u2019s cinematography is dreamy) and derives warm-hearted vignettes from it.<\/span>\n\nFor a film that was stuck in the works for years, <\/span>Karwaan <\/span><\/i>is resolutely modern \u2013 by emphasising that a girl and a guy can just be friends. Avinash and Tanya are two lost souls who find clarity and closure through each other. But the film doesn\u2019t exploit their connection as a licence to make them fall for each other, even though they share an infectious chemistry. She\u2019s consistently mistaken as his girlfriend, despite their glaring age gap, and they fight and make up.<\/span>\n\nThe temptation to turn a budding romance into a plot point must have been overwhelming. Tanya could easily have transformed into a manic-pixie dream girl, \u00e0 la <\/span>Anushka Sharma<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>Jab Harry Met Sejal<\/span><\/i> and Katrina Kaif in <\/span>Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara<\/span><\/i>. But the fact that she doesn\u2019t is utterly refreshing and a memo Bollywood could do with. Karwaan<\/em> is also proof that you can find yourself, learn about life and your family, without letting a manufactured love story derail it.<\/span>\n\nKarwaan<\/span><\/i> also has a mature and thoughtful scene between two former lovers. The premise is incredibly progressive as well: A husband invites Avinash, his wife Rumana\u2019s (Kriti Kharbanda) old lover into their house so that she can find some closure. She, on the other hand, has already forgiven Avinash for the rejection years ago, and instead teases him about his dismal skills at bidding adieu. And when they finally part, the camera trains its lens on their warm hug \u2013 as much a memento of the passing of time as of the film\u2019s depth.<\/span>\n\nBut <\/span>Karwaan<\/span><\/i> reserves its warmest strokes for its familial narratives. Despite being a film about estranged and dead fathers, it focuses on what it takes to be a parent. And, the lessons that our parents\u2019 death inevitably etches onto our lives. For Tanya, it\u2019s a carefree attitude; for Avinash, it\u2019s the realisation that his father was so engrossed in being a parent that he never got the chance to just be his father. And for Shaukat, it\u2019s an innate need to be the saviour. <\/span>\n\nIn doing so, <\/span>Karwaan <\/span><\/i>leaves you with a touching upshot: That the road to self-discovery is incomplete without passing through the <\/span>memories of our parents<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karwaan has its share of shortcomings but it is resolutely modern \u2013 by emphasising that a girl and a guy can just be friends. This road-trip film is also proof that you can find yourself without letting a manufactured love story derail it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[6052,6053,1787,2869,6054],"class_list":["post-3093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-akarsh-khurana","tag-dulquer-salman","tag-irrfan-khan","tag-karwaan","tag-mithila-palkar"],"yoast_head":"\nKarwaan and the Road Less Travelled by Bollywood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Karwaan has its share of shortcomings but it is resolutely modern \u2013 by emphasising that a girl and a guy can just be friends. 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