It’s routine for some of our 50-plus superstars to romance women half their age on screen. We had to accept this fact grudgingly. With time and some criticism, even if the male hero’s abdicated the “college lover boy” image, the machismo and star aura still ensured that while they kept getting older the women opposite them kept getting younger.
So when De De Pyaar De trailer came out, where Ajay Devgn’s character is shown trying to juggle life between his “mature” ex-wife and a 20-something chirpy girlfriend, one frankly didn't expect much – same old jokes, stereotypes and double meaning dialogues.
Turns out the trailer did it disservice because De De Pyaar De is actually surprisingly good!
Written by Luv Ranjan (who has a dubious distinction of being “anti-women” thanks to his previous films) and directed by debutant Akiv Ali they have managed to come up with a nicely put together rom-com that thankfully never nosedives to crass humour.
While the whole age difference angle remains on the surface and concessions made to mainstream contrivances, it is a refreshing take on modern-day relationships.
When 50-year-old Ashish Mehra, well-settled in London, realises he is becoming attracted to a 26-year-old who plays a bartender on weekends, he visits his therapist friend to help dissect the situation. Javed Jaffrey, in his inimitable style, mouths some of the generally held stereotypes about rich older men falling for pretty young women.
“This is no age gap, it’s a generation gap” he quips. “You want validation and she wants your money!”
The first half is teeming with jokes at Devgn’s expense. An oldie, a “budha”, ‘would he really be getting as much action as he would ideally want?’ Ayesha (Rakul Preet Singh) wonders. He is called “uncle” multiple times by a young man asking for love advice.
And Ayesha herself doesn’t miss an opportunity to rub it in and speaks about how weird it would be if they got together. The film proceeds lightly and things do stall a bit when songs are thrown in at us, but it’s smooth sailing still.
Post interval, we are introduced to Ashish’s “estranged” family and also to the film’s trump card, Tabu! Tabu and Ajay go back a long way. Their first film together was Vijaypath in 1994!
It’s a winning combination, and Tabu – who can lift up a scene by merely being in the frame – wields her magic here too. The film owes a lot to Tabu and Ajay’s very easy chemistry. They are the “mature” couple and it’s a welcome respite from Ajay-Rakul Preet’s jumpy, chirpy bubblegum romance.
The age gap in a relationship doesn’t just amount to one partner having lived more years than the other on planet Earth! There are evolved sensibilities, a different perspective to things and situations, and while the movie fleetingly acknowledges these, it keeps it all rather surface-level.
What it does instead is give us some nice touches on how it views relationships and the quintessential “moving on”. There is a newness in the way it talks of failed relationships and broken families.
The scene near the end when Manju (Tabu) opens up about why their marriage didn’t work and how no one person can be held accountable for it is tackled well, with Tabu being a complete show-stealer. De De Pyaar De keeps its length and ambitions in check and that works in its favour.
3 Quints out of 5!
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)