Deepika Padukone’s Gehraiyaan is an epic ‘trash’

There was a lot of excitement built around ‘Gehraiyaan’ that was released on Amazon Prime only recently. It was supposed to be a movie that deals with the complications of modern-day relationships. It was supposed to go into the depth of dysfunctional relationships.

But it turns out to be a rather shallow plot. And you simply cannot put it together and find a semblance of coherence or meaning in the story. Let’s go through the plot and other features of the movie.

The theme

Ananya Pandey (Tia Khanna) and Deepika Padukone (Alisha) are cousin sisters. Tia is engaged and Alisha has a boyfriend.

Tia’s partner (Zain) is fake rich, and Alisha’s partner (Karan Arora) is, let’s just say, not doing well in life. As it turns, Zain falls for Alisha. There is nothing that does justice to the movie title ‘Gehraiyaan’ here. Zain simply flirts with her, and Alisha falls for him.

The plot

Soon, they are hooking up and cheating on their respective partners. Why? We don’t know. The movie could never convey that.

And yes, there are a few things thrown here and there. Zain has taken money from Tia’s father. And on top of it, he has orchestrated a financial fraud that he has to hide. So, he decides to dupe Tia and get some more money.

Meanwhile, Alisha and Zain are having fights because Alisha got pregnant, and Zain can’t give her enough time. Zain however manages to convince Alisha and keeps on double dating the two cousin sisters.

The next thing we know, Zain and Alisha are together on a yacht. Alisha reads up Zain’s chats and realises that he is double dating. Zain tries to kill her on being confronted but accidentally it is Zain who gets killed.

That’s pretty much it. And yes, Alisha and Tia have the same father. Apparently, Alisha’s mother and Tia’s father had a little bit of an affair. So, instead of cousin sisters, you had stepsisters.

Lacking depth and meaning

Frankly, the movie lacks depth. I just narrated the entire plot. So, you can pretty much understand where it gets unmeaning.

Again, the same question. What does the movie want to convey? What does Alisha see in Zain, apart from the fact that he is haughty and a bit of a show-off? Why does she choose him over her current partner, who is a writer and doesn’t go over the top? And not to mention the level of vulgarity in the movie is borderline soft porn. We mean, after every 15 min or so there is a kiss scene or a hookup scene.

Gehraiyaan tries to explore infidelity closely and tries to set itself in a different league by touching upon an unexplored issue. But it carries no coherence and no substance simply because the different pieces in the movie don’t connect together to make a meaningful whole. You will see Zain hooking up with Alisha at one point and Tia at another.

And then there is this issue of the movie going awry. If you watch it, you will realise that. It starts off as a romantic drama, which is what we expected it to be and that’s quite alright. At some point, it starts playing like more of a thriller, especially after Zain gets killed accidentally.

But as it turns out the movie doesn’t conclude like a thriller either. It again tries to end up like an emotional drama. So, it’s neither here, nor there. The movie tries to be unconventional and fresh but turns out to be confused and incoherent.