BLUF: Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui is the story of the romance between Ayushmann Khurrana Manu as a Punjabi fitness trainer and Vaani Kapoor as an empowered trans woman, Manvi.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
The movie is marketed as packaged. The objective of the story is to start a conversation about gender fluidity choices, and it establishes its story, however, wrapped to really trigger a narrative.
A photoshopped version of the struggle of a trans woman who wants to find love for her and more than that acceptance by society for her choices.
The film slots itself into a promising sub-category of Hindi films which create storylines intended to convince audiences to reevaluate their perceptions about biases about tricky topics such as sexual orientation or gender.
Ayushmann Khurana portrays an alpha local gym rat, whose life is defined by protein shakes, keto diets, and weights. What man who wants more than anything else is to beat his rival Sunday in competitions that measure brute strength including one in which they pull jeeps with their bodies. When we first see this man, he is bare-chested, doing a punishing routine. His entire world comes crashing down when he falls in love with the new Zumba instructor who always looks like she stepped out of the pages of the Vogue.
For some reason, she even comes to the gym in heels. The two lovers soon are having torrid passionate sex, but then a little secret makes itself known and all hell breaks loose.
IN THE KNOW
Directed by Abhishek Kapoor, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui makes it extremely clear that it is a real Punjabi film with a lot of loud Punjabis in it. And with wall graffiti or T-Shirt slogans to drive the message home.
Thank Supratik Sen and Tushar Paranjape for not making it really OTT.
CKA is based on a story idea by Simran Sahni in Abhishek Kapoor’s team, who is the mother of trans daughters.
The best scenes of the film are the confrontations between Manu and Manvi. This may be Vaani Kapoor’s strongest performance as she packs in the right amount of strength with vulnerability in her portrayal of Manvi.
Ayushmann Khurana remains untouchable. He brings home another winner with Manu. His body transformation is phenomenal.
The whole movie is like the McDonald’s burger wrapping, where the gloss of the wrapper deflects from the nutrition of the food. But for now, this is enough to get the conversation on the table. And it is brave for that.
The story twists itself into telling a lot of subplots. Holistically, the film wants to make a larger plea for inclusion. So, it simply casts for D &I.
One of the characters is a lesbian, there is a Hindu Muslim romance to check the boxes but it runs into the zone of being so generic that it may come off a more of a frail attempt at being woke.
This is definitely not a deep story of a transgender person and their real world, but it is an attempt to bring the conversation mainstream. It successfully does that.
Remember Sadashiv Amrapurkar as the vicious Maharani in Sadak? That was more than fact was 30 years ago. It has taken us that long to bring a conversation about gender fluidity mainstream.
CKA is not Pose, which shows unique and exciting stories of trans people, and euphoria, that includes a coming-of-age story featuring a transgender character. It does not claim an accurate representation. But it does bring a positive representation.
Having cisgender actors portray transgender characters may not end in representing a collective transgender perspective. But movies like CKA celebrate the people while also acknowledging the different struggles they face day-to-day.
If not a commentary, movies like this serve as proof of the evolution our society has made toward inclusion.
