"Gehraiyaan" the latest pre valentine watch, exclusive on Amazon prime had the most hyped-up & awaited release. The film does sound like quite the paradox, a satire as the content & story seemingly lacked any depth (the literal meaning of the title), whatsoever. However, it made me question us audiences what were we expecting from a film like that where the promos revealed the light-hearted tonality of relationships and how they unfold through the film. All the non-supportive feedback & negative publicity that it has attracted ever since its release is indeed a direct outcome of our flawed expectations.

Hence, before I pen down my thoughts I make sure to free myself of any subjectivity & prejudices of its recent reviews and watch it purely at face value. And as expected, I was not disgusted as I thought I'd be by the end of it. Even though the watch was spread over two screenings, which is less than ideal.

The plot may not be as great as others but it most definitely is real - to say the least. If we look around us - don't we all live in relationships of convenience which lack basic trust & commitment. Such profound values on which foundations of relationships are made, sound like mere myths these days yet the film didn't go down very well - I wonder why? Perhaps the bold scenes which actually were an integral part of the script are something that the audiences didn't expect but to my mind, they were important to the film's shallowness. So the title is definitely paradoxical.

Talking of the positives - Deepika's stunner performance in addition to her being the absolute stunner that she is! Music is such a big plus and a saving grace and does add some bit of gehrayee to the plot with songs & background score being well-timed and gelling well with the script, especially the ones who have been busy making memes on social media - my favorite one being "Gehraiyaan" would end sooner if Tia used True caller well :)

Both Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Tia (Ananya Pandey) seem to justify their characters to a large extent and delivered a fair performance of the roles. The story & screenplay is super real and that to me makes it the USP for the film but that said, there have been some gaps which if filled well would have led to perhaps a better version. The length of the film should have been at least 45 minutes shorter as editing definitely wasn't the strongest. It was a bit too dragged as despite the unexpected twists and turns the story loses its impact beyond 2 hours. Lastly, Deepika's live-in partner (with all due respect) could have been played by someone else however, in all fairness he did look like a struggling writer and an irritable boyfriend stuck in an old relationship. Overall - a one-time watch especially for the Padukone fan club.