Dev D - Review

From the start, let me mention something, this movie might come as a culture shock to many, and it is not really advisable to see it with your parents/elders.

Now, when we talk of Devdas, we have always thought of epic stories, big actors, glamour & the old age story of Devdas, Paro & Chandramukhi. Dev D has borrowed the basic outline of Devdas, but is in itself, a very different, fresh and interesting view on how it would be in today's scenario.

Dev.D is all about Joints, Vodka, Cocaine, Sex, Dingy brothels & a man confused with himself & his love.

The movie is set in rustic north Indian settings and truly has the punjabi flavour to it, in the language and the locales. It starts of with a young Dev and his childhood love Paro sitting at the riverside eating some parathas. Known for his brash language, this son of a rich industrialist is sent packing to London to study. The scene where his father is slapping him and he is cross questioning him is excellently written & hilarious.

Cut-to 2009. Dev(Abhay Deol) is still in love with his childhood Paro and wants nude pics of hers to be sent to him on the net. Looking at them, Dev makes a return journey to India, in the hope to make love to her and be with her.
Enter Paro (Mahie Gill), daugher of the manager, who gets reunited with Dev & they keep looking for chances to have sex. But a sudden turn of events takes places, which makes Dev despise her & scorn her.

She then decides to get married to someone else and here starts the real journey of Dev.D.
Without her Devs life spirals out of control and he is sucked into a life of drugs, alcohol and randomness.

The other track is that of Lenny (Kalki), who is a 17 year old school girl and gets caught up in an infamous MMS scandal. Her parents start hating her and her life becomes a mess. She is sent packing to her grandparents place & slowly runs away, only to find Chunni (Dibyendu), who runs a brothel and takes her in. He pays for her education by day and she returns the favours at night, under her new found identity Chanda.

Going back, Dev roams around aimlessly drinking all day and night, not bathing, smoking drugs, and thinking about Paro. There are a lot of songs woven into the screenplay which keep coming at regular intervals. Sometimes abrupt, sometimes in the flow, these songs greatly back the films visuals, which by themselves are stunning.

In search of alcohol, Dev stumbles upon Chunni, who brings Chanda into his life and slowly he starts falling in love with her.
Paro returns briefly to meet Dev, clean his clothes & almost have sex with him, but decides against it, making Dev even more miserable, calling for another round of Cocaine lines, Vodka shots & joints.

A sudden turn of events akin to the Salman car case, leave Dev in a bad state, only to be let out on bail to go to his dead fathers funeral. Somewhere here, when you feel that the movie should be reaching a logical end, it does not and is pulled even furthur, where again Dev goes on his random drinking sprees, hitchhiking across the north doing some more drugs and alcohol.
With a sudden revelation, he realises he loves Chanda & goes back to Delhi, and so life moves on.

The cinematography is great, with some amazing trippy visuals, cut-scenes, tight shots and some innovative camera work.
The music is absolutely marvellous, all credit going to Amit Trivedi, who has created some great tracks. Emotional Attyachaar being the highlight in the cinema halls, where people are actually singing in the stalls. One thing is certain, if you don't like the music of this film ,there are chances you might get irritated as the music is part of the narrative.

From the actors, Kalki is apt and fits the role, Mahi impresses with great potential as an actor.
But the true performance of this movie is Abhay Deol. Every frame speaks volumes of his potential as an actor, Dev.D being his best performance yet. It looks like a role crafted for him and gets into the character, a Top Notch performance.

Somewhere in the movie, the narrative gets very slow and this movie would be amazing if 15-20 minutes of trimming was done.

Anurag Kashyap, known for his crazy stories, has truly tried something very new here and he has impressed yet again. His cinema is meant for the thinkers. the wanderers, those who want to go a little over the top. Call it weird, call it arty, he truly knows how to tell a story. Kudos to Anurag.

Although No Smoking did not have many takers, he has taken the risk to venture into the unknown again, this time too though, I doubt this film would have many takers. He has done a great job here, bringing in some serious alternative cinema, but alas, this cinema is not for the masses . They might go to the cinema halls for the sex content, but that is only a few. At the multiplexes (yes, issues solved), this film should have a good opening, especially with the youth, and I would really hope that it gets its due.

I would strongly suggest you catch this one, for Abhay Deol, drugs, a modern day look at Devdas and some weird but interesting storytelling from Anurag Kashyap.

Critical: 3.5/5
Commercial: 2.5/5