Plagiarising Woody, just for a laugh

Dil Kabaddi
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan
Director: Anil Senior
Rating: **

We are living in an age of attention deficit, cloaked acceptance of infidelity and gradual rewriting of marital morality. These themes lend themselves to great humour, but to borrow from Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, without credit, is not funny.

The age of the protagonists in Anil Senior’s film is much lower than in Allen’s classic, and this is the first stumbling block — people who are bored in two years of marriage should look elsewhere anyway since they clearly are not cut out for the concept. This seems to be especially true of Samit (Irrfan Khan) who is frustrated with his wife Mita’s (Soha Ali Khan) ‘cold’ demeanour and constant nagging. Samit finds solace in the company of sexually adventurous aerobics instructor Kaya (Payal Rohatgi).

On the flipside, Rishi (Rahul Bose) seems to be quiet rebelling against passive aggressive Simi (Konkona Sensharma) and finds himself drawn to one of his bohemian students (Saba Azad). Simi, on the other hand, harbours a crush on her editor, Veer (Rahul Khanna) even as she plays matchmaker between Mita and Veer.

So far so potentially funny, but where Allen scores with glib one-liners and matter of fact humour that slides in and slips you up with its realism, Dil Kabaddi’s dialogues never lead you to miss even a beat.

Sure, some situations and discussions between the married couples are rather realistic - especially sequences between Rishi and Simi, but others like Mita’s incessant nagging, histrionics and self-righteousness are hard to bear.

Technically, the background music is too rambunctious and out of rhythm with on-screen action. The art direction is appealing and the styling believable. The biggest flaw is the lack of a strong storyline or graph and the resolution is not meaty either. Dil Kabaddi is saved by the performances of Irrfan Khan (unrestrained and inventive), Rahul Bose (natural and consistent) and Rahul Khanna (endearing). Konkona Sensharma delivers as expected.

Fortunately her chemistry with Bose raises the bar on those scenes. Soha Ali Khan’s character changes her hairstyle but not her personality which remains that of a complaining harridan (which she plays with conviction). Payal Rohatgi screeches, screams and dumbs down to excruciating depths as a bimbo aerobics instructor with a penchant for wild sex.

Fans of the actors might pick Dil Kabaddi. Those who have missed out — pick Husbands and Wives right away. Woody Allen doesn’t translate well into Hindi.