Tanu Weds Manu Returns

“Kangana tera swagger Lakh ka re”….. Looks like it’s that time when Bollywood heroines have decided to not only play strong female lead roles but also turn them into blockbusters; be it Anushka’s ‘NH10’, or ‘Piku’ from Deepika, and now the masterpiece by Kangana in ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns‘.

Big cheers for the girls!!!!

Tanu Weds Manu Returns, is a comedy drama sequel of 2011’s ‘Tanu Weds Manu’, directed by Anand L. Rai. He has earlier directed the first film too along with highly appreciated ‘Raanjhanaa’. This one is also one of his best work.

Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR), stars Kangana and Madhavan in lead roles. Other characters who have continued their roles from the original, are, Jimmy Shergill as Raja Awasthi, Pappi Ji played by Deepak Dobriyal, and, Payal played by Swara Bhaskar. New characters introduced in the sequel includes Zeeshan Ayub as chintu, and Rajesh Sharma as Datto’s brother.

Kangana has played two roles in this movie, one is of Tanuja(Tanu) Trivedi, a feisty Kanpur girl who is appropriately called batman by neighborhood, now married to a soft-spoken doctor from London.

Another role is of Datto (Kusum), who is an equally fiery girl from Jhajjar, Haryana; an athlete with a typical haryanvi accent and determination to do something to be proud of.

Story starts where most of the Bollywood stories ends, that is, marriage. It’s been 4 years since Tanu and Manu get married to each other and now living their boring life in London. It becomes so hard for Tanu to deal with her monotonous life that she decides to leave her husband in a mental asylum and come back to Kanpur, her hometown. Divorce proceedings starts and so start Tanu’s involvement with her ex lovers from rickshaw puller deepak to Raja Awasthi.

While Tanu is busy meeting his exes, Manu meets second Tanu – Datto. A haryanvi athlete who looks like Tanu, except for her big teeth, short hair and full on jhajjar personality. With Datto around, Manu started reliving his days when he had fallen in love with Tanu, only to realize that he actually loves Datto and wants to marry her. What happens next? Well, watch the movie, believe me you will not get disappointed.

What makes this film stand out is its perfect star cast. Everyone fits so perfectly in every role that you can not imagine anyone else. Everyone has acted so beautifully that you can not think of them outside their characters, ever. Specially Pappi Ji. Deepak Dobriyal has made Pappi ji a legend with his baraati dance and apt one liners. He is the perfect side kick. Kudos to that person who have written Pappi’s dialogues. He was the most funny and lovable character of the movie.

Same goes for Chintu, who was a new entry in TWMR. One of the best dialogue of the film comes from his mouth, when he tell Jimmy that he is a shoulder for girls to cry on and later be used. Jimmy Shergill has always proved his mantle in every film of his, here however he didn’t have much to do. But, he always look stylish and handsome to me. Swara bhaskar has also done justice with her role. I really liked the scene where she mimics Datto. All these theater artists, they are like a boon to Indian cinema.

Madhavan is madhavan, a gold hearted, good-looking, simple, plain, and soft-spoken common man, who wants to live a simple life. He has portrayed this character with such an ease that it looks like piece of cake. He is astonishing in his dialogue delivery and more so when he is expressing himself without saying anything.

Coming to the soul of this movie – Kangana. Just to give you an idea of what kind of performer she is, someone in the hall asked quietly to his neighbor, these two are the same girls? Same heroine?, referring to Tanu and Datto. She has played two totally different characters so distinctively that you forgot that she is the same person. They are totally different. From the walk to talk. Just to be more filmy, both have a different swagger. Kangana is a marvelous actress. She is talented, beautiful and a risk taker. She is what we need, and Indian film industry should respect this talent.

It’s not like that this film has no flaws. Most annoying was the introductory scene from mental asylum. Seriously, how can that be possible? Film’s climax is also a bit cringe worthy. It has more to do with our society which treat marriages as ‘7 janam ka rishtaa’, forever kind of things. It looked like in the end, filmmakers did not want to take the risk.

But, beauty of this movie is that you will forget about all these small glitches in the mayhem of natural performances, fast paced storyline and apt dialogues. One of my best scene from the movie was when Tanu disrespect Datto for her looks and small town mannerism; and Datto replies back with pride telling her that she is a state level athlete who is taken admission on her merit basis and she is a self-made girl and proud of it.

Overall, watch this movie because it’s very rare that you will see effortless beauty of every actor synchronized together in a single movie. Watch it for its actors. Watch it for Kangana.