Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat movie review: Harshvardhan Rane, Sonam Bajwa film revives misogynistic toxicity of Darrs, Anjaams, Tere Naams

How is it that this is being touted as a Gen Z love story, just the way Saiyyara was? I thought that was just Mohit Suri freshening up his favourite tropes for this gen, but that was way better as compared to this, which goes totally overboard in the overblown, overwrought, unbelievable stakes.

Does this demographic really think that falling in love is this dated and dangerous pile of cliches: Vikramaditya sees Adaa walking down a red carpet, he holds out his hand, she gives him hers, and that accidental clasping is it — he’s in love, and doesn’t care who knows it. His best buddy (Shaad Randhawa) looks on bemusedly as Vikram keeps circling around the clearly reluctant Adaa, pushing every chance he gets, ignoring her vehement protests which soon turn into active dislike.

He hectors and smiles, sheds a ready tear (I haven’t seen a leading man tear up as much this one does), and spouts poetic dialogue — all the deewaniyat, deewanapan, hadd paar ka jaana, mohabbat mein fanaa ho jaana — okay the last one’s mine, but you get the point.

She is allegedly a superstar, but apart from a secretary/manager, doesn’t seem to have an insulating entourage or even a publicist to help her navigate stalkers such as Vikramaditya, who gets his notion of everything-I-want-is-mine from his thuggish politician dad (Sachin Khedekar). Her family – father (Ananth Mahadevan), mother, younger sister — is supportive to begin with, but even they begin wilting in the face of all the relentless pressure.

Despite the sighs and the songs, the film does nothing but prop a flagrant red flag as a ‘hero’, forcing the ‘heroine’ to put out a preposterous proposal half way through the film, which is meant to be a shocker: maybe it would have been, if this whole thing hadn’t been such a shocker itself.

Ek Deewane ki Deewaniyat movie trailer:

What this film is saying is that you can, with impunity, harass and browbeat a woman into saying yes, when she has been saying no for 99 percent of the movie. Even today. Hey, woke people, where are you when we need you most?

The most depressing part? Bollywood refuses to deep-six the deeply regressive misogynistic toxicity of the Darrs, Anjaams, Tere Naams: it keeps bringing it back, cementing the dangerous idea that one-sided obsession is a perfectly legitimate emotion, which can badger and bludgeon the nay-sayer into submission. Whatever happened to No means No?

Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat movie cast: Harshvardhan Rane, Sonam Bajwa, Shaad Randhawa, Sachin Khedekar, Ananth Mahadevan
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat movie director: Milap Zaveri
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat movie rating: 1 star

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