What is the point of making a two-hour-and-thirty-minute film when it can be described in three sentences, through three characters and even within a three-minute TikTok video?
‘Cocktail 2’ is loud, colourful, yet immeasurably shallow. While the film is effortlessly forgettable, it does leave a mark on the cinematic understanding that, despite being visually vibrant with commendable fashion, art direction, music and cinematography, if a film lacks the layers of emotional and human experience, it simply does not matter.
This triangle love story, impeccably forced and marred by relational insecurities and affairs, evokes the paradox of cinema's true meaning for this generation of filmmakers. If even one per cent of the effort put into its production were given to the script-writing and characterisation process, the film would not be as desolate.
‘Cocktail 2’ follows three main characters: Diya (Rashmika Mandanna), Kunal (Shahid Kapoor) and Ally (Kriti Sanon).
In Diya and Kunal’s decade-long relationship, a joke about cheating [made by Kunal] results in doubts and further extends to insecurities. Meanwhile, resisting people’s expectations of their marriage, they fly to Sicily, taking a break from the internal and external noise, where they meet Ally, Diya’s college friend. To test whether Kunal’s commitment to the relationship is genuine or an act of responsibility, Diya convinces Ally to seduce him, leading her to fall for him and eventually marking one of the most generic love triangles.
Designed more to generate social-media-friendly moments rather than meaningful drama, the film, attempting unimpressive aura farming for its sixteen-plus audience while foregrounding celebrated Indian actors, remains painfully far from being absolute cinema.
Cinema is indeed a source of entertainment; however, it is within the laughter that we realise how powerful this medium can be. There comes a point in a film when it conveys an undeniable message, compelling us to reflect on our lives, our belongings, or simply to empathise with the characters. We sit in a hall, expecting to feel something and to experience either a part of ourselves or something entirely foreign. That is why cinema matters and leaves a mark.
Therefore, it is a matter of concern that a rom-com as pointless as this can make it to the halls. Its emotional conflicts are introduced and resolved without sufficient introspection, leaving little space for the audience to invest in the characters beyond the surface of their dilemma.
Diya’s insecurity remains at the core of ‘Cocktail 2’. After all, if your boyfriend, while being pathetically drunk, says ‘jokingly’ that if he ever cheats on you, you would never know, it does stir up something.
Diya is fond of marriages, until it is her own. Given their 10-year live-in relationship with Kunal, it was evident that people would ask them about their marriage. Within this, Diya seeks escape and an overarching validation that Kunal truly loves her. Ally, with her charming presence but not as much as Veronica, played by Deepika Padukone in Cocktail, ultimately becomes a source of Diya’s need for substantiation.
Challenges were accepted [with warnings], unfolding something incredibly unexpected.
Within the plot that fails to surprise, Pritam’s music holds the thread, including ‘Tujhko’, ‘Leher’, ‘Mashooqa’, and the remake of ‘Bandhu’, gaining fragmented appreciation for the film.
Kapoor’s character, as much empathy as it seeks to absorb, fails to do so with equal force. A chef and a ‘loyal’ boyfriend, whose emotions are assumed greatly by the female characters, are lured into the trap of seduction. Kunal’s minimal articulation is perhaps the only element that keeps the viewers on a not-so-entertaining edge until the final scenes, where he compares love to an old cupboard. This may be the film’s sole metaphorically poetic dialogue, which, sadly, stretches its emotional relevance beyond its own capacity. The dialogue becomes prolonged and manufactured, with the back-and-forth close-ups of all three characters.
What does stand out is the acting. For Mandanna, emotions quickly surface even with the mildly evocative screenwriting. And for Kapoor and Sanon, we know exactly when their emotions begin to shift.
The long shots and colour grading, too, become the film’s definitive style, occasionally helping us overlook the dull narrative arc. Mistaking style for substance, the film therefore dazzles the eyes but leaves the hearts untouched.
‘Cocktail 2’ is hard to recommend, yet the appreciation remains for the effort to bring a contemporary nuance to filmmaking. Often, Nepali filmmakers are urged to follow this aspect, but hopefully, they would not do so to the point that relatability is compromised for the sake of unnatural aesthetics.
25.08°C Kathmandu
