Bhool Chuk Maaf Review: Maybe the Real Time Loop Is the One Viewers Are Stuck In
'Bhool Chuk Maaf; starring Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi hit theatres on 23 May.
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A time loop is an incredible premise – the idea of someone being stuck in the same day, going through the motions over and over, taps into a very specific anxiety of being stuck in a monotonous existence with no way out. It takes the idea of being stuck in a grind and gives you some hope – the main character will escape, they will figure things out eventually even if they must first go through a spiritual or coming-of-age journey.
In that sense, Karan Sharma's Bhool Chuk Maaf hits the brief. Ranjan Tiwari (Rajkummar Rao) isn’t a ne'er-do-well as much as a victim of an unemployment crisis and his plight is only heightened when his girlfriend’s (Titli Mishra) father asks him to secure a government job within a month if he wants to marry her. The ‘by hook or by crook’ is written in parenthesis.
The atmosphere created so far is that of a small-town entertainer that isn’t taking itself seriously and, for the most part, it works. You’re not too bothered by Ranjan’s desperation-fuelled attempts to find a job – you know he will succeed and you’re never really thinking about the consequences. For now, the stakes remain low; the main ‘conflict’ is that of two lovers trying to fight against all odds to start their lives together. However, unpredictable circumstances push him to rely on divine intervention instead – he makes a ‘promise’ which he forgets to fulfill in the chaos that ensues once his wishes come true.
And so, he’s stuck in a time loop. He keeps waking up on the 29th, his wedding on the 30th always out of reach. Like most films of the genre, only he knows of the loop’s existence and most of his frustrations and actions stem from this reality. He becomes increasingly agitated as he tries to explain his predicament to those around him while trying to figure out why he’s stuck in it in the first place. By the time all of these scenes have rolled by, a lot of the film’s flaws become obvious.
Nothing unravels an inventive premise like the feeling that the makers don’t fully understand all the details that come together to make it. A time loop is a difficult idea to conceptualise and execute – the film must transfer the protagonist’s exasperation to the audience while keeping them interested in what will happen the next time around. For this, the devil really does lie in the details. The 29th, for instance, would have to be sketched out with such intricacy that even the slightest deviation would be interesting to watch and would have larger consequences to the plot.
Time is an incredibly sensitive thing – even the slightest shift can have catastrophic consequences. Multiple films and even genres have relied on that basic premise (‘Don’t meet yourself when you time travel’ or ‘If you go back in time and fix your parents’ relationship, you might not exist’ for instance). But the film often forgets these consequences and each subsequent version of the same day seems to play out differently – if not for a few repetitions here and there and the characters wearing the same clothes, they could easily stand for completely different days.
For instance, Ranjan’s bachelor party is clearly a scene that only exists for the sake of the song so when the day gets repeated, the scene doesn’t come back. In a time loop story, scenes with no effect on the storyline either stick out like a sore thumb or feel like a waste of ‘time’ (of which there is an abundance and a shortage both at once).
You can’t help but hope that the makers will finally realise that there is a lot they could do with the story. The main pair – Ranjan and Titli – for one, seem awfully mismatched. While there are moments where we get a glimpse into the softer aspects of their relationship, Titli’s characterisation is so one-tone that the feisty, endearing love interest borders on problematic. It doesn’t help that the film eventually forgets that they are the people the audience will be rooting for – it makes the typical Bollywood mistake of assuming that the male protagonist is the focus of the story and everyone else simply exists around him.
So Titli just becomes the difficult partner who flies off the handle when her wedding isn’t going the way she wants but she is more than that – anyone actually paying attention to her role in the relationship can see that. But the film isn’t interested in that because it isn’t interested in Titli beyond making a ‘point’, ‘Look she isn’t your typical love interest!’ Why is Titli so bothered by the prospect of her wedding day going wrong? What is so terrifying about the idea that she is either reduced to tears or fits of rage? You’ll have to put those pieces together yourself.
For the first half, Titli is a woman who stands by Ranjan no matter what – even when she’s flaky and at her wits’ end by how often she must come in and bail her idle boyfriend out. By the second half, I found myself wondering if the point of the film is for Ranjan to realise that they’re incompatible – how many version of a day do you need to live to realise that you and your partner probably don’t have what it takes to sustain a marriage?
What helps the movie is that the actors are putting their best foot forward. Rajkummar Rao has perfected the small-town hero archetype and yet manages to rely on his natural charm and physical comedy to imbibe each character with something new – sometimes he sets the exaggerated expressions lower, sometimes he adds a physical tick that is noticeable but not jarring. It’s the one reason the film still stays on its feet even after the focus shift from the love story to Ranjan’s journey. The sequence where he starts treating everyone with saccharine kindness to try and break the curse is particularly hilarious. The actor can even make a scene where everyone is waiting for a flower pot to fall engaging.
Gabbi infuses her character with all the energy of a Bollywood rom-com heroine on the cusp of becoming ‘iconic’ – there is a marked difference between the Titli she is around her family and the one she is around Ranjan and she floats through both parts of herself seamlessly. But she is forced to push the act too far because the writing doesn’t give her a point B to get to – she is cursed with the task of making standing still look like a journey. If you had to sit and watch paint dry for hours, Rao and Gabbi would probably make for interesting company, so to say.
Most of the supportive cast including Seema Pahwa, Raghubir Yadav, Ishtiyak Khan, Zakir Hussain, among others are all interesting characters that don’t have much to do. All the actors do a great job at hitting the brief; the issue is that the brief is hollow and disappointing.
Cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee paints a pretty picture of the film’s setting in Varanasi and his skill is probably only let down by the fact that the film itself doesn’t allow the characters and the story to truly become one with its surroundings. The frames are stunning and the colours jump off the screen in the best way possible but, at the end of the day, it is simply a scenic canvas.
The background music doesn’t surprise in that it does exactly what is expected of the recent spate of Bollywood comedies – it’s loud and unapologetic when it really should be apologising for drowning almost everything else out. The songs, while not memorable, aren’t that bothersome – I would even go as far as calling ‘Sawariya Tera’ fun in the right setting.
When the film finally gets too its messaging, it’s difficult to actually connect with it because you haven’t been given much to hold on to so far. The basic question the film is asking is this: What do we owe to each other? How can we be capable of turning a blind eye to the suffering of others, especially when we play a part in it? At this point, you’re probably just impressed that the makers’ heart is in the right place but one can’t shake off the feeling of it all being performative. The storytelling simply isn’t strong enough to hold the end together, when the bits and pieces finally seem to be falling in place.
Have you ever wondered what it is like for a character stuck in the same time loop as the protagonist but the camera never turns to them so they’re perennially trapped waiting for the main character to do something right and fix things? That’s what it feels like to be in the audience and watch the film fumble some of the most obvious story arcs. If you stay, you stay for the actors and what the film could have been.
As far as ‘bhool chuks’ go, this one is a little too difficult to forgive.