Befikre: The man child and the awesome twosome

The man child who doesn’t grow up, at least not till the end of the movie, is a trope in Hindi cinema that refuses to go away. The Khans symbolised the multiplicity of maleness in 90s and noghties cinema - the new age post-reforms, at-ease-in-the-world Shah Rukh Khan; the steady, dependable Aamir Khan; and the working class hero Salman Khan. Two of the finest actors of the 2010s - Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh—have now played the man child to perfection in back to back movies from Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra. There’s a parallel there too - Aditya Chopra gave Shah Rukh Khan his ultimate NRI hero in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai made him appealing to the New Age Woman.

But while the New Age Woman was growing up in Hindi cinema, from Simran in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge who has to wait patiently for the boy to win over her traditional father, to Rani in Queen who is quite content to embark on a solitary trip to Europe to discover herself after being heartbroken, the man was regressing.

To the point in Rock Star where he staked everything for the woman he loved even as he elevated suffering for his art above all else, all the while giving him the licence to behave badly. Since then the man child has surfaced with great regularity at the movies. In Tamasha, where the hero grows up only by acknowledging the boy he left behind; in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, where he cannot understand why the woman he loves will not love him back (stalker alert!); and now in Befikre, where Ranveer Singh’s Dharam Gulati is a bade dilwala Dilliwala in the city of amour, Paris.

The man child has an appropriately millennial profession, a desi stand up comic in a desi bar. The all grown up girl is a French tour guide, also for desis, who also waits tables occasionally for her parents’ desi restaurant despite being and feeling totally French (which means dancing on the streets wearing short shorts and sleeping with a series of men, which naturally qualifies her to be called a slut by the Dilliwala).

The movie consists of the man child and grown up girl finally finding love. Is it with each other or with others—she a banker who is also cool and he a French model with a voracious sexual appetite? Will their dil be Hindustani even if their bodies are Parisian? Just as their stomachs crave aloo parathas when depressed and pakoras when happy? Deep, huh?

Befikre, apart from worshipping at the cult of Aditya Chopra (complete with dialogues and song snatches from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge) wants us to believe that boys will always remain boys until they meet the right grown up girl. Indian hearts will always be desi no matter if the city is London in the 1990s or Paris in the 2010s. And Indian stomachs will always crave the food that has the papa ki jhappi ka feel and mom ke dupatte ki khushboo.

The film is saved by the fine acting skills of Ranveer Singh, who along with Ranbir Kapoor, is clearly one half of the Awesome Twosome who plan to rule hearts and minds over the next two decades, much as the Khan Trio did, and is still doing. His impeccable comic timing, uninhibited body language and terrific repartee help keep the film and viewer afloat. Whether he is comparing his French girlfriend’s ‘twacha’ to French rasmalai or calling his desi friend chudail aurat, he is fun and funny. The grown up girl, played by the singularly unattractive but highly competent Vaani Kapoor, loves him for his goofy baatein and sexy dance moves, but is not sure he is suitable enough for her. The dares are reminiscent of the Marion Cotillard-Guillame Canet film Love Me If You Dare, which may well explain why the film is based in Paris. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham tested the NRI’s deshbhakti by playing the national anthem, Befikre does so by making them wish for aloo parathas. How millennially cool is that, right?

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