Desi Daru, Bidesi Bottle… Cocktail Movie Review

I was keen on watching the movie more because my friend Shalmali Kholgade (go ahead an like her fan page) sang the song ‘Daru Desi’. I expected some real today movie but somehow not every director has the guts to do a Karan Johar or Yash Chopra on an adulterous relationship. Yash Chopra’s Lamhe took a subject so daring of its times where a girl romances a man of her father’s age and Karan Johar explored the subject of extramarital affair in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and still become a commercial success. While movies like ‘Chini Kum’ and ‘Nishabd’ too had similar stories but one had a comical angle and the other had a lot of lust.

Cocktail deals with the subject of no strings attached relationships where they show two professionally successful individuals, Saif Ali and Deepika Padukone working hard (they edited out those scenes) and partying harder (it was all about this). Enter Mother India (Dimple Kapadia) and Sati Savitri (Diana Penty) and the movie is one of the regular bollywood story.

My observations

1. They could have shown a bit more on the professional ethics of the three of them. Saif is shown a software engineer but mostly as a flirting at workplace. Deepika Padukone is a photographer but except for one scene where she is capturing someone monkeying on a trampoline, she is all the time partying and sleeping with strangers. Diana Penty gets a great job but she’s always shown messed up in personal life.
2. Boman Irani was a Wasted Resource: The character was supposedly ideated to help Saif in his misgivings but did almost nothing except for act as a filler when the story went flat.
3. Saif was trying too hard to look like a 25 year old. He could have acted like a successful, suave 33 year old flirt. There are plenty of them in the society.
4. There are some funny moments, flat moments, high moments, flat moments, one cocktail moment(discussed in detail below), flat moments, predictable moments, flat moment, flat moments, flat moments and some more flat moments. So over all a ‘thanda drink’. Dont watch if you have a sore throat…ha ha just kidding.
5. Two DPs (Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty) with D Padukone at her hottest best and D Penty at her saddest best. In fact I was confused many a time is she was crying or smiling. And there is a stark resemblance between the two too.

Okay. Now to ‘The Cocktail Moment’ : When a Drunk Deepika padukone tells Diana Penty something like ‘Chalo hum dono usko share kar lete hai, tu biwi ban jaa aur mai rakhail…meri image ko suit bhi karega..kyun itna bhi nahi kar sakti? akele hi rakhna chahti hai.‘ Wish they could have actually done something on these lines where they all live happily ever after.That would have been revolutionary. But Homi Adjania somehow pulled back his original idea it seems and preferred to stick back to the regular success formula. (I doubt this thought never crossed his mind)

There are so many instances, India and Worldwide, said-unsaid, of successful people and commoners with multiple partners such as:

Musicians : Pandit Ravishankar(Annapurna Devi,Kamala Shastri, Sue Jones and Sukanya Rajan )

Dancers: Raja Reddy (Radha and Kaushalya Reddy)

Actors : Dharmendra, Amir Khan, Saif Ali, Dimple Kapadia and so many of them.

Players: Vivian Richards

Politicians: Karunanidhi

The movie actually wanted to show some of the issues of the current Indian Society such as:

1. Career is primary and relationships are secondary for the current crop of youngsters.
2. Being settled in life is about financial independence and not just about getting married and having kids.
3. The current crop has moved over the cliched mentality- ‘marriage stuffs are only the Sati Savitri types others are good just a s one night stands‘. Women look good when they are hot and sexy and can be taken home to mom.
4. DPs are carefully chosen to show the two sides of every girl today. Each one of us has an outrageously bold and subtly sacrosanct personalities.

Relationships become a burden when an old school, dearest to heart, elderly family member, emotionally pressurizes you to get married. That is their idea of settling down. While they are all okay with the fact that their child is in and out of relationships but the one they marry should be financially stable in case of grooms and homely and cultured in case of brides. Even today the parents protect a 30+ year son/daughter and feel societal pressures if they are not married. And this is what leads to conflicts of interests and such marriages are more prone to break as compared to the ones which are between like minded people. Anyone can still have a life if they have been through a broken relationship, and not just once but as many times till they find someone who matches up to their personalities. One break-up should never be a deterrent to live life to its fullest. Remember you have just one life. Cocktail is an eye-opener to the way kids today want to lead their lives. Do watch it.

Rating: ***1/2 on a scale of 5

They should have