'Cocktail 2': a cocktail of visuals but flavourless storytelling
Disappointment
Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna star in Cocktail 2.
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Movie review: Cocktail 2
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna.
Director: Homi Adajania
Rating: 5/10
THERE is a moment in Cocktail 2 when I stopped wondering who would end up with whom and started wondering who thought this was enough of a story for two-and-a-half hours.
Fourteen years after Cocktail arrived dressed as a modern relationship drama and as a star making vehicle for Deepika Padukone, Cocktail 2 returns with a new cast, the same director and far less clarity about what it wants to say.
Helmed by Homi Adajania, this time written by Luv Ranjan and Tarun Jain instead of Imtiaz Ali.
The most impressive relationship in Cocktail 2 isn't between its three leads. It's between Adajania's camera and Sicily. The two are inseparable. Every frame is drenched in sunshine, great costumes and the kind of scenery that makes you briefly consider maxing out a credit card for a Eurotrip. Unfortunately, once the visual intoxication wears off, you're left facing a film that desperately wants to say something profound about modern love but keeps tripping over itself.
The story follows Kunal (Shahid Kapoor) and Diya (Rashmika Mandanna), college sweethearts who have spent a decade building a life together.
Enter Ally (Kriti Sanon), Diya's old friend, who turns their relationship upside down. What follows is a tale of attraction, insecurity and emotional dependence as the three find themselves tangled in a situation that grows increasingly complicated and increasingly difficult to believe.
To be fair, the film is reaching for something interesting. It wants to examine how modern relationships survive in the grey areas between commitment and desire and between habit and love. The characters are flawed and occasionally selfish. Real people are flawed too. But the entire film hangs on a central conflict so contrived that it never feels emotionally convincing. Its more a sitcom episode idea. On the other hand, anything told with conviction can be bought into with the right script. Here, the screenplay keeps stretching the idea like chewing gum until all flavour disappears.
The clash of creative voices is noticeable. Adajania has always been at his best exploring flawed urban characters with empathy, whether in Finding Fanny or parts of the original Cocktail. Luv Ranjan's writing, meanwhile, often approaches relationships with suspicion and cynicism. The result feels like two completely different films fighting for control of the same screenplay.
Sanon gives the film a pulse whenever it threatens to flatline. There is a confidence to her performance that reminds one of the energy Padukone brought to the original. Sanon continues proving that Bollywood has not yet given her the calibre of scripts her talent deserves. Since Mimi, she has largely been trying to elevate material rather than benefit from it.
Kapoor is a superb actor and is solid in the quieter moments. But, it is another film in a post Kabir Singh career that continues to disappoint. Kapoor recently admitted he has started questioning his own instincts when selecting projects after a string of films failed to connect. Watching Cocktail 2, you can see why he might be reassessing the map.
Mandanna has expressive eyes but struggles with her Hindi diction which remains distracting.
Parents appear so late in the narrative that they feel like guests who arrived at the wrong wedding. Supporting actors drift in and out so abruptly that you begin suspecting entire subplots were left on the editing room floor.
The greatest disappointment is that audience theories were far more intriguing than the film itself. What remains is a pretty umbrella but a weak drink.
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