Metro In Dino - Ambition derails storytelling

Metro In Dino

Hindi - Drama

162 mins

Netflix

Prologue

Anurag Basu is a filmmaker i have been following for the last decade. He has matured over time—from his days with the Bhatts (Murder, Saaya), moving on to Life in a… Metro(LIM), Barfi, Jagga Jasoos, Ludo, and now… Metro In Dino.

Life in a… Metro (LIM) was a film very unique for its time. A movie that brought together intertwining relationship stories, headlined by an amazing cast, with an exceptional (and ahead-of-its-time) musical score—it truly brought Anurag Basu into the big league of Hindi filmmakers.

The review

Metro In Dino (MID) is meant to be a spiritual successor—18 years later, different cities, more couples, more diverse relationship issues, upgraded for the times. There is a lot of ambition here and lot  that should have worked. I really wanted to like MID, but I just couldn’t bring myself to.

• One track follows a married couple in midlife crisis. (Pankaj Tripathi and Konkona Sen Sharma—the only actor carried over from LIM). This one wants to play out as comedy, but beyond a couple of chuckles, Basu’s idea of funny is to make Pankaj Tripathi run around shirtless and in boxers (twice!)—picture that. Oh, and Tripathi’s character is also named Monty (??).
• A story about the angst of love and compromise (Fatima Sana Shaikh, Ali Fazal). She’s a successful singer, he’s a career man—they move to Bangalore (of 2032, with all the Metro lines finally done!). They’re pregnant, he doesn’t want the responsibility and wants to go back to  singing, she wants the child, but they decide to not have it and for him to pursue his dream. Does it really work out?
• Then there is a a typical bollywood romance story between a yuppie girl and a situationship guy (Sara Ali Khan and Aditya Roy Kapur). Of course, the girl is already engaged...you know the rest.
• An elderly couple (Saswata Sen and Neena Gupta) seem perfectly fine on the surface, married for 40+ years. The wife reminisces about a life that could have been and gets a chance to relive it for a couple of days at her college reunion, which would also give her a chance to meet her old flame (Anupam Kher) and she pursues that.
• A track of Anupam Kher's widowed daughter-in-law. She is duty-bound to her father-in-law, but he wants her to remarry his late son’s friend, who plans to take her to the UK.

These characters are all connected in some way—that's meant to make it even more interesting. I do not know why, but Basu chooses to use infidelity as the recurring theme. Almost like this is Infidelity in a… Metro.

The songs play in the background and at key moments. They are well-intentioned and do add weight to scenes, but after a point they also weigh the film down. You are simply exhausted with so much happening. Such a pity.

The actors do their best with sketchy characters, but none of them really stand out. Sara Ali Khan cannot act, and she sports the lousiest wig ever. Aditya Roy Kapur is once again the gatekeeper of the flawed alpha male, who has issues. You can barely even hear (let alone feel) Ali Fazal’s character. Fatima Sana Shaikh is fine. 

Pankaj Tripathi—My hat off to him for atleast doing a character outside his comfort zone, but he gets a raw deal with a caricaturish role. Likewise with Konkona Sen Sharma. Neena Gupta is the one you truly give your heart to—she looks lovely, all grace and poise. Saswata Sen and Anupam Kher are functional.

Good actors wasted because of the writer-director’s insipid execution in chasing lofty ambitions.

Epilogue

Director Shankar was the master of showing everything that could possibly be shown in a particular situation/setting—much like how Madhur Bhandarkar did in his first couple of movies.

Anurag Basu seems to be taking a similar approach here and it really does not fit. A random track about an abusive boss that does nothing for Sara Ali Khan’s character. A sensitive track about a young adolescent girl’s confusion over her sexuality is handled in a very indelicate and inconclusive manner. The widowed daughter-in-law arc is also fumbled. None of the big ideas land.

Too many ideas, too much going on. If Basu really wanted to make a film, it would have worked better with just 2–3 stories. Honestly, an anthology with each story fleshed out would have easily sold to OTT—and I guarantee it would have received a better reception. It would have given the characters and their arcs the flow and closure they deserved, instead of the raita that Basu has phailaaoed.

Do yourself a favour, your choice if you want to really watch the film, but definitely instead listen to the 28-track album of MID (Side A and Side B). Qayde Se, Yaad, Dil Ka Kya, Zamaana Lage, Aur Mohabbat…  a welcome return to good Hindi film music.