Ami’s take on EMAET

**Some Spoilers**
I like both the lead actors of the film and I’m partial to the rom-com genre- so it was pretty much a given that I was going to enjoy EMAET. And to be fair to the film- it is a much better effort than all the recent rom-coms such as IHLS, Break Ke Baad, Aisha and Anjaana Anjaani.

The film is refreshingly light both on melodrama and syrupy romance, Imran and Kareena have a surprisingly believable chemistry and the supporting cast of actors is excellently cast. The physical comedy in the film is funny without being crass, the music works well in context and the unconventional ending was lovely.

However- even though I enjoyed the movie as a piece of well-crafted fluff- I couldn’t help but feel bothered by it on some level. Films like Wake Up Sid!, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara- and now Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu garner critical acclaim and are supposed to represent the ‘new, urban, smart, modern’ side of Bollywood.

Yet all of these so-called ‘meaningful, original’ films are incredibly limited in scope and they all operate in a completely cosmetic milieu that is extremely derivative of American popular culture (be it F.R.I.E.N.D.S, 500 days of summer, Sideways or whatever else).

And they all deal with the coming of age of poor little rich boys combining several of the more irritating tropes of Indie cinema such as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the man-child who refuses to grow up and the irritatingly entitled hipster whose myopic world view makes his trivial, juvenile trials seems gargantuan.

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is almost a caricature of this genre of supposedly intelligent cinema and it’s silly little excuse for a storyline makes Wake Up Sid’s plot appear Dickinesian in scope while its All-Americanized facade makes Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara look like a masala movie.

The central conflict of the film is Rahul’s terrible ill-treatment at the hands of his parents- they made him brush his teeth 3 times a day, he complains to the psychiatrist he visits in Vegas- in a moment that the filmmaker no doubt intended to look Woody Allen-esque. As the film proceeds we learn that his draconian parents also made him take golf lessons and instructed him to chew his food 32 times and they make him miserable by doing things like getting him an internship with a top architecture firm is Las Vegas and dragging him to see the opera while all he wants to do is be a photographer and have a relaxed family dinner.

Meanwhile, Riana- being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl- doesn’t really have a conflict. She is unable to pay her rent because she is too busy being Free-Spirited! to hold down a steady job (she is a ‘freelance hairstylist’) and her primary occupation is calling her jolly, liberal, Goan Catholic Mamma and Pappa in Mumbai whenever she has spent all their money and asks them to wire her some more ASAP. And naturally- this is the type of responsible adult role model that the film wants Rahul to learn from.

Given this plot- it is only natural that the film’s climax involves Rahul throwing a fit at his parent’s dining table in front of important guests and refusing to use the chopsticks to eat his sushi. After Rahul shocks the dinner party with his bad table manners, he storms off- we are told in his ending monologue that he has finally been able to escape his parental oppression and this is visually articulated by having him untie the tie that his father chose for him and throw it out of the car window (might I add that the car he is driving happens to be his father’s BMW?)

This is the kind of petulant fit that a five year old should be ashamed of throwing- and to have it presented as the triumph of a twenty five year old is just absurd. Yet- if some reputed reviewers are to be believed- this coming-of-age story apparently represents the coming of age of Bollywood itself!