Review: Love and Grief Are Inseparable in Netflix’s ‘Cobalt Blue'

'Cobalt Blue', first and foremost a queer love story, is marred only by its execution.

Neelay Mehendale and Prateik Babbar as Tanay and his mysterious paying guest in Cobalt Blue.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

Every frame, every emotion, every movement is yellow, cadmium red, or cobalt blue. Cobalt Blue, based on Sachin Kundalkar’s novel of the same name, comes alive through these intense shades of primary colours. The film isn’t a page-by-page adaptation of the book— it leaves out some of the book’s more problematic elements and some maybe it wasn’t brave enough to explore.

On the flip side, some scenes that are given passing mentions in the book are front-and-center in Cobalt Blue. The film opens with death, the most complex and primitive understanding of grief. And there on, the film grapples with the sense of bereavement in lost love— hidden in cupboards and diaries and in stolen glances.

Neelay Mehendale and Prateik Babbar in Cobalt Blue.

Cobalt Blue is a story of two siblings— Tanay (Neelay Mehendale) and Anuja (Anjali Sivaraman)— who fall in love with their new paying guest (Prateik Babbar) who, in the end, abandons them both for reasons that are never revealed. Perhaps it’s better that way.

Commendably, the film doesn’t shy away from exploring Tanay’s relationship with the (unnamed) guest, and this exploration of a queer love story is a bagaavat with the time it's set in. Cobalt Blue expertly uses colour to portray what is being felt and how this guest seeps into the lives of the two siblings— after he leaves without notice, Tanay almost always has strokes of blue paint on him.

Prateik Babbar as the paying guest in Cobalt Blue.

Their romance is innocent, sensual, explorative, and at times languorous as the guest lays sprawled across the mattress in the room upstairs (that he is renting) and Tanay lays by his side, deep in thought. This is contrasted by the uncomfortable air around Tanay’s relationship with his professor (Neil Bhoopalam), an older gay man who soon becomes overbearing as the power dynamics come into play.

Anuja’s story is not one of romance but the aftermath of it. Anuja is shown as a woman who doesn't subscribe to the idea of femininity everyone around her does or wants her to. But the archetype is sometimes pushed too far— it's hard to believe that she doesn’t know how to use…deodorant.

Neelay Mehendale and Anjali Sivaraman as Tanay and Anuja in Cobalt Blue.

The film doesn’t give her as much screen space as the book or even explore mental health the way its pages do but it gives Anuja more freedom. Her identity is distanced from the guest but not the grief his absence left her with and Cobalt Blue, through Anuja, explores patriarchy instead.

Her father’s anger that is constantly simmering at the surface and her mother’s silence and compliance, most probably born out of necessity, are both inflicted upon Anuja. Her journey towards freedom is heartwarming, especially as she sheds all the adornments her family puts on her.

Anuja's mother confirms Anuja to the family's idea of a 'feminine' person.

Mehendale as the innocent writer/poet is excellent— his inquisitive boyish charm adds shades to Tanay that even the book missed out on and Sivaraman as Anuja is mesmerising to watch. Babbar plays the role of the mysterious paying guest convincingly.

Every actor in the story has done their part in bringing the story alive and the film only stutters when it almost contradicts itself— the guest's conversation with Tanay about thinking of a girl when they're together minimalises the story it had been telling all along.

A still from the Netflix film Cobalt Blue.

In times like these, the idea of Cobalt Blue is more mature than its execution and it comes across as yet another road to Rome, built with good intentions.

It has to be noted, Cobalt Blue doesn’t give any director’s credits to Kundalkar but the streaming service and the author haven't publicly addressed the discrepancy.