Metro... In Dino Is Tender, Tangled Ride Through The Heartlines Of City Life

The multi-narrative ensemble films, with interconnected stories, are one of the most challenging genres to master. Here, a diverse cast of primary characters undergo meaningful arcs that gradually converge into a cohesive, emotionally resonant finale, as opposed to one or two leads with several supporting players contributing their weight to a linear plot. Metro In Dino has mastered keeping the audience emotionally committed in each scenario while making each one equally interesting and connecting them with a natural, unifying thread.  Director Anurag Basu sustains our interest for more than 3 hours by disclosing everything that comes out of his kaleidoscope all at once in one comic splash.

Love in many shades: The gift and curse of contemporary love

These plots have lots to be unpacked, and each one could have been thoughtfully developed with the emotions it deserved. Nevertheless, Basu, who is credited with the screenplay, story and cinematography, preferred to play it out like a Hollywood musical. The cast frequently breaks the fourth wall to narrate the fights, opinions, backstories and confusion of the couples, and the way the compositions are constructed will remind viewers of the director's underappreciated oeuvres.

The movie is on track to be a drama and a musical, and at points, that's jarring for the viewer. Committed to telling a heartfelt story about people falling in and out of love, Basu and his co-writers once again break the brackets and walk away from algorithmic screenplays. The movie interrupts us too much at first to speak directly to us, but it eventually finds a pleasant rhythm with erratic beats. Although the romantic fervour is evident throughout, we are aware of Basu's delicate handling of his audience's healed wounds. As we would say today, his characters and film situations sum up the ceaseless chaos that Cupid and the business world bring about for us to reflect upon.

Eager to restart his marriage, middle-aged, middle-class Monty Sisodia (Pankaj Tripathi) mumbles infidelity, morality, and infertility in one breath to his dreaded nagging wife, Kajol (Konkona Sensharma), who seems to be torn between the contradictions of what was and what could be. Tripathi and Sen Sharma share moments underscored by witty musical interludes (especially when he is caught cheating). However, as the arc draws to a close, the battle feels needlessly drawn out.

Although a few scenes in Ali Fazal and Fatima Sana Shaikh's parts are powerful, their suffering and struggle ultimately fall short of having a deeper emotional impact. The character journeys between Ali Khan  and Aditya render to be the most underwhelming. Sara is presented as intelligent, yet she freely acknowledges that she is perplexed by love. Aditya maintains a regular string of casual relationships while portraying the endearing commitment phobe.

Performances that anchor even when the plot floats

As soon as we settle into the skin of the movie, Basu begins removing the masks we all preen in, layer by layer. This is where his talent sits. He attempts to avoid using the term villain to refer to anyone. He recognises keeping the clichés in check when they are unavoidable in the trip, and none of the angles in his triangles seem devalued. In this instance, the city and the means of transit serve as a small part of each of their stories and the "metro" remains in both a literal and figurative way.

However, there is a significant distinction. Mumbai's instability, hardships, and ambitions were a major influence on the protagonists' lives in Life in a Metro. Although the sequel explores the cities of Mumbai & Delhi, Bangalore, Goa, and Kolkata, none of the cities are more than cursory in the story. We needed to see characters develop in a flash, and that is why selecting the right actors is integral! Sara Ali Khan and Aditya Roy Kapur make it too easy to comprehend the lust and lost mess of the so-called generation, and they both own the awkward peculiarity and broken mind that consistently resides beyond the smarmy self-assurance placed in front of the naked vulnerability.

Tripathi and Sensharma get us to think about the appearance of health we often see on social media. Sensharma does the legwork as a woman physically straddling two options, while Tripathi steps into a space once occupied by Irrfan Khan's understated brilliance in Life in a Metro, bringing his quiet gravitas. Neena Gupta, playing Shibani in the older generation, occupies a comparable yet slightly more sure-footed space. She and Anupam Kher together make a sketch of college friends separated by circumstances. 

To cut right to the chase, I wanted to love Metro. Instead, I only liked it! A nice cameo from a director famous for his romantic dramas adds a whimsical touch just when you think the movie is about to show all its cards. Although the film does not have the emotional punch and power of its predecessor, it is an amusing, nice, and sincere representation of our relationships today, and certainly amusing in some ways. However, it could have been a genuinely unforgettable film with a bit more narrative skill. If you want to watch it, view it for the one your heart can't stop thinking about, watch it for love, watch it for the one you crave.

Views expressed by the author are their own and don't represent the company.