Pop Cola Spilling: What I thought of Gully Boy?

Image Credits: VOGUE India

I have some things to admit to my readers before I proceed to explain my thoughts about the 2019 Zoya Akhtar led film, Gully Boy. For starters, I have watched this film twice and it took me two viewings to grasp all that I got out of it and to spill the many emotions I felt into words. Lastly, this is my first film review of sorts. I am no expert but I absolutely love watching movies and I self-certify myself as a film nerd so here we go!

I almost forgot to mention two other things: I am a huge Ranveer Singh fan. Huge! (Are you visualizing Trump here? I mean, Don’t do that to yourself on such a nice sunny day) Any who, I will try my best not to be partial here. By God, bread pakode ki kasam! (Go watch Band Baaja Baraat if you failed to understand my need of putting a Hindi dialogue in the middle of an English review). These were things I needed to establish so that we can get on to a smoother start. The first time I saw Gully Boy was in a supremely packed theatre, a strange sight for a 8 AM show but I guess the audiences came well equipped with all the rap songs learnt to the T and they were annoyingly shouting out ‘Bohot Hard’ before the movie even rolled into action. But guess what? I did not mind. I was pumped.

A dissection of standout performances

Where do I begin? I read a lot of reviews after I watched the film and luckily they didn’t dilute my train of thoughts. I loved how Ranveer being the protagonist of the film is shown walking behind a side character who leads the way to a supposed robbery. I have to give it to Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti for fleshing out every character in the movie with such definition. I felt for each character quite deeply because there was a story. The casting directors come to play here. What a brilliant fitting cast!

I have several stand out scenes but I will mention the best ones on my list: Ranveer plays Murad, a Muslim boy who lives in the Dharavi slums and is leading a tough life in the harsh city that is Mumbai. One of the dialogues goes roughly like this: “I don’t have anything good in my life. I simply don’t have anything at all” That’s when his mentor and one of the most beloved characters of the film ‘MC Sher’ aka Siddhant Chaturvedi steps up. He tells him that when sadness and tough times come, that’s when rappers come to play. In fact, any god damn artist. They prey on to tough times, write about it and let it go. Not to romanticize sadness, but it truly does fuel you to do better things and I couldn’t agree more.

Moeen played by Vijay Verma is an absolutely standout character that stays in your heart till the very end. Given his wrong doings, he helps Murad chase his dreams. The role of his uncle played by Vijay Maurya has not only acted but penned the brilliant dialogues for this film that never seem unauthentic. The other standout performances are by Amruta Subhash as Murad’s mother and Sheeba Chaddha as Safeena’s mother.

Now let’s talk about Sky played by Kalki Koechlin. I had many people tell me that her character was almost insignificant and was brought on as a device to break apart Murad and Safeena’s relationship which would count as a generic plot twist. But this is my opinion: Yes, the character was underwritten leaving no room for us as audiences to connect with this character, But at the same time, Kalki played it well. For me, it wasn’t just a plot twist. It spoke volumes. How convincing it felt to me that Murad was attracted to someone who viewed the world differently.

She was given freedom to do and speak as she wills, she had a bunch of friends who were as free as her, she loved music and went to an institution that teaches music full time (something that bewilders Ranveer’s character) and lived in a large apartment or should I say has a large bathroom that could easily house two other families like Murad’s. We always are attracted to people who have something we don’t have and would really like to have. In fact it’s Sky’s character that teaches him so much without much being said via dialogues. So for me, Kalki’s character is a thumbs up.

A dissection of standout scenes

Murad is informed that his father has gotten married and is bringing home his second wife. The chawl is shown in a modestly pompous atmosphere where people are seen congratulating him while Murad stares intently into the harsh lights and turns to his aid: his dear-to-life earphones and listens to an English rap song which can be classified as mildly melancholic. As his mother is seen serving food to the guests at home, he can see her sadness and right when I felt like a tear was about to drop from his tanned cheeks, his earphones unplug from his ears cutting to the shehnai sound that surrounds the chawl. I had so many scenes that I loved but I urge you to watch this movie so that you could pick your own favorites and break down the interpretations.

I feel when it comes to characters, Ranveer Singh’s eyes deserve a spot of their own. The myriad of emotions depicted in utter silence are mind boggling and are a revelation. The tightly framed film which zooms up to the fullest of the 70mm, witnesses Ranveer aka Murad crooning to ‘Doori’ an emotional song that draws you into his eyes and takes you on a detour to understand his life and his surroundings and how strongly he feels for all of it.

Lastly, I am going to talk about Safeena played by Alia Bhatt. A performance that will stay in my heart for a long time. After her gut-wrenching performance in Udta Punjab, she proves with Gully Boy how she doesn’t take her roles lightly. Her acting chops are on a full display. Safeena is bad-ass and won’t ever compromise because she very well knows how it feels like to be suppressed under parental and societal pressures. For her, Murad is a constant. The only person who has been with her through thick and thin.

The message Safeena sends across is simple: Mess with him or flirt with him and you are end game! But the possessiveness she has for Muarad isn’t just there for the sake of it. She has been deprived of many things although she comes from a middle class family. For her, Murad is a window to her freedom and she loves him ever so dearly. Its phenomenal how Alia Bhatt gets it right almost always and such strong female characters need that. A weak performance would have wrecked the beautiful relationship shown between both the characters so thank God for that!

Costumes

The costumes created by Arjun Bhasin and Poornamrita Singh never seem unauthentic. I am so glad that Ranveer wasn’t wearing flashy Gucci jumpsuits and gold chains just because he was a rapper putting an end to the stereotypes. In the end, he dons a two-piece Adidas clothing which was toned down yet something that made everybody want to cop it ASAP. The character’s circumstances were definitely taken into account. Personally, I love the idea of Ranveer donning a kurta over jeans complete with a jacket. Absolutely absurd but bang on right for him because it looked worn in. It was wonderful to see how Safeena dresses differently and it goes in accordance to where she is. She wore simple pastel shade kurtas at home whereas for college, she donned pretty tops over jeans with a printed hijab worn across her head. There was nothing amiss to me in the clothing department so hurrah to that!

Credits Rollin’

Zoya isn’t afraid of having silences throughout the movie, where without much spoken, it is interpreted by the audiences almost instantaneously. Filled with plenty of social messages that we as a country need to be reminded of time and again are masterfully placed in situations and doesn’t seem like a buzzkill at any point. It educates you instead. And it’s not preachy and staged. Although many complained about the extended screen time for such a predictable rags-to-riches story line, I was completely engulfed into the world Zoya created. I felt it was apt and as she has mentioned in her interviews, cutting the screen time would result to an incomplete story line which I would have not been a huge fan of personally. Every character had a story line of their own. This is something I witness in very few Indian films.

Gully Boy for me is a total winner. Roughly based on Divine and Naezy’s real life success stories, it’s amazing to see how the Indian underground rap scene was so huge and yet we failed to understand or discover it. Now go ahead and listen to these artists because the movie is an ode to these artists who are taking the world by storm one rap at a time.

The series ‘Pop Cola Spilling’ will have this and much more coming your way. This is my attempt at something I love and I hope I get better at it sooner or later. Loved my review or simply didn’t like it? I always welcome a mail explaining the why’s and why not! Mail me @ srishtihemmady10@gmail.com Meet you soon to discuss another review!