Review: 'Yeh Dooriyan' is a classic that has to be seen to be believed

Film: Yeh Dooriyan
Director: Deepshikha Nagpal
Story, Screenplay and Dialogues: Deepshikha Nagpal
Cast: Deepshikha Nagpal, Deepshikha Nagpal’s friends, and the film’s producer, Kaishav Arora
Rating: Priceless

Yeh Dooriyan is the kind of film that comes once in a while. There’s only one way for you to get to know the film: watch it to believe it.

At many places, Yeh Dooriyan left me open-mouthed, and in a state of disbelief. Is such a film for real? It is. If cinema is supposed to shock, Yeh Dooriyan succeeds.

The main protagonist of Yeh Dooriyan is a mother of two, an ageing dance instructor called Simi, who goes ‘one-two-three-four, turn, two-three-four’.

Simi, as the film’s promo suggests (YouTube it to get a glimpse of what’s in store), is ‘special, intelligent and beautiful.’

Deepshikha Nagpal writes this script about a divorcee who falls in love with a younger man. She’s credited with story, screenplay and dialogues, and as the casting director, and director.

No surprise then, she casts herself in the lead role of Simi too. (You can’t but wonder if the film is part-biographical, part-fantasy, but that’s another story).

Simi meets Raj (Simi and Raj, anyone?), a young muscular model with acting chops that makes Dino Morea look like Marlon Brando.

This guy is the reason you should watch Yeh Dooriyan. One of the film’s producers (the other, of course, is Deepshikha Nagpal), Raj gets to play his dream role -- he gets to dance, bares his abs, romance the girl (woman), and wear cool ‘goggles’ even when he’s indoors.

He’s uber cool, he thinks. And therein is the irony. After a ‘roking’ dance performance in a nightclub, the hunk walks up to the bar and orders… red wine.

But what makes Raj the most awesome character in Hindi film history (ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, may be) is the lines he’s been given.

“May I seat?” he says at one point, trying hard to impress Simi, and succeeding too. “How much you love me?” he asks her in another scene, with an innocence that makes you fall in love with him. When he’s trying to cheer Simi up, he says, “When you smile, you look like strawberry.” She can’t help but smile. You can’t help but go “awww”.

Of course, I can point out little things that make Yeh Dooriyan one of the most entertaining films of the year. Like one of Simi’s male friends telling her father how “bee-oo-tee-fool” she is (at that point, I thought they were just two leery men ogling at her thighs; it turned out one of them was the father).

Or how after refusing to invite Raj home for coffee because “I don’t invite strangers for coffee,” she hands over her two kids to him to take home while she’s at work. It’s a stunning scene.

But why focus on small details? The bigger purpose of the film is to entertain, and entertain it does. Don’t miss Yeh Dooriyan. It’s a classic.

(All views mentioned in the above review are to be taken with a pinch of salt. And red wine, for best results.)