#rrkpk

[spookypeacephantom]

[nainawithspecs]

“Tu kya hai, yaar?”

“Jo bhi hoon Tera hi hoon, yaar.”

[hi-avathisside]

BI PANIC. BI PANIC.

[itsfookingloosah]

I wanna eat rocky randhawa

[mirambles]

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani - An honest review

I watched Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani because everyone I know on social media and few close folks in my real life said it was very entertaining - funny, progressive, feminist , and it showed gender equality.

So I was taken aback, because the general sentiment for KJo movies should be ‘It’s so shit, but I love it’ - that is a sentiment I can live with because we all have our guilty pleasures.

KJo has his audience who love the shit he pulls off every time he ‘directs’ a film with toxic masculinity, regressive female leads , justifying infidelity (always the answer to unhappy marriages) , glorifying Indian culture, where he adds 30 mins of melodrama and lectures to make the characters redeem themselves. Kjo’s movies are as lame as they can be, but people love them. I get it - ‘this shit is so bad, it’s so good’ category of films. Guilty pleasures are exactly this!

So sell me his new offering in exactly this manner - but all reviews and social media comments were glowing words of praise of how he has addressed today’s issues and it’s a progressive film. Are people suffering from amnesia or have they not watched better Bollywood films? Because I have a whole list of films you should watch that actually deal with ‘progressive’ mindsets - way before Kjo’s time!

Rani is a feminist. A FL as feisty news anchor who gives a 5 min lecture on men’s gaze, objectification of women and rape culture, but does an absolute U-turn 5 mins later by objectifying a handsome man in front of her. This is gender equality. Tit for Tat.

Wearing open back blouses to work is sign of new age feminism (Will I get trolled for sounding old school - has KJo ever stepped inside a corporate workspace - who dresses like Rani does?) What’s next? Women CEOs wearing bikinis? And why not get all men to dress like Rocky Randhawa - that would be peak gender equality in dress code at workplace.

Infidelity is the answer to all unhappy marriages. Remember KANK? Yes, let’s repeat that here, but let’s twist it into unrequited love between the senior citizens. Then add memory loss and illness excuse to get the 80yr old grandpa smooch his 75yr old ex-lover in front of his wife and entire family. The issue is not old age love, age is never a restriction to fall in love, the issue here is infidelity. But if this isn’t cringe enough, let’s completely destroy the most beautiful romantic number in Bollywood by playing it in the background to immortalise infidelity and later lust under the garb of love.

Let’s get back to our feminism torch bearer Rani, who has now jumped from knowing the guy for two meetings to lusting over him. She is honest with herself (not with Rocky mind you, because at no point have they had any conversation about themselves) that she is in it purely for the physical attraction, it’s just a fling for her. She is an elitist , feminist, Colombian grad, Bengali Girl (who has a terrible Bengali accent) and the crude, can’t speak English well, Gucci/Fendi wearing, Ferrari driving, protein shake drinking, loud Punjabi boy doesn’t match up to her standards. Kjo’s new level of feminism - make women pull the exact shit on men that men have put women through for decades. Tit for Tat! Gender Equality.

Btw at this point I still don’t know why Rocky loves Rani - love at first sight is always about the looks and physical attraction, so convince me why he loves her - because isn’t he this walking-talking green flag just by being understanding of his grandpa’s feelings and calling out Rani checking him out. A walking green flag who gets his grandpa’s ex-lover and his grandpa together to help his grandpa get better - because love is the cure for all illnesses. All doctors and medical researchers have been wasting their time on getting degrees and super specialisations - please enter Kjo’s school of love.

So now Rani realises she is in love - when and why and what changed her feelings from lust to love - I do not know. She drives on a 4-lane highway in the opposite direction - woman should have died there for her reckless driving, but she lives to propose to Rocky on a f&*king Highway! Bollywood I love you for pulling off this shit.

This is supposed to be the pivotal point in their relationship where she professes her love to him, going down on one knee (because hey you see role reversal - she is the feminist, the alpha female) and telling Rocky everything that HE IS NOT , listing her resume and her exes’. Therefore implying he doesn’t deserve her, but she is taking the high road and still falling for him. All the reasons she lists that she loves about him are actually about his physical aspects = Lust. She doesn’t list one meaningful quality that she actually ‘loves’ about him.

It is at this point that I gave up on the film, because after this RRKPK became a collation of scenes dedicated to social media trending topics:

1. Women burdened with household work

2. Women not liberated enough to pursue their dreams

3. Women being fat shamed

4. Cancel culture

5. Men being shamed for pursuing classical dancing (KJo research FFS - 50% of India’s top kathak dancers are males right from 1940s! )

Each topic got 1-2 scenes, tweets converted to preachy dialogues uttered by our ‘feminist’ queen and zero closures or character growth.

The only thing that works in this movie - is Ranveer , not his character, but him! He is effortless in this role, his comic timing is superb, needs some work on emotions.

Alia is a shadow of her awesome self on screen post her marriage to Ranbir. It hurts to say this, cause I have loved her in all her movies except SOTY.

Can people age gracefully, I couldn’t bear to look at Shabana Azmi and Jaya B - former was gorgeous as hell in her younger days, now is swollen with all the Botox fillers! Jaya has forgotten to act completely. Dharmendra should not even be acting anymore.

What was the point of rest of the cast? Only Alia’s dad was a decent act.

The one thing I absolutely love in KJo movies is the music and songs! These were crap too. What Jhumka? Because ruining all the songs from ‘The Golden’ decade of Bollywood was not enough, so they made a terrible mashup of Badtameez Dil & Jhumka Gira Re and killed both the songs in one go! Takes some skill doing this - well done!

Why this long rant if I disliked the movie so much, that too KJo movies? I wouldn’t have written one, if the reviews and comments were honest about the movie being average, typical entertainment; but the moment people praised it to nth level of being socially relevant with feminist heroine and gender equality - they deserved to be called out for their shallow thought process thinking that KJo actually cares about any of this stuff.

Worst people think this is ‘quintessential’ Bollywood. Please watch better films - like Amitabh’s roaring 70s, the romance films of 90s, the fun comedies, the glorious slice of life films from Hrishida, the Yash Chopra multistarrers - that’s quintessential, genuine, charm of Bollywood.

Lastly before I wrap this up - RRKPK when literally translated is Love Story of Rocky and Rani. I spent 2.5 hours on this shit show and I still don’t know the answer to why and how they fell in love! They didn’t have one decent conversation about themselves! The latter half is about them wooing their families. The film should have been aptly titled ‘Randhawa and Chatterjee Ki Prem Kahaani’ - It’s all about loving your family - K3G Part 2!

[houseofbreadpakoda]

Pachtaava

Rocky aur Rani fic

Time flows slower when you're lonely. It was true. The loneliness was getting to her. It was strange though. Not like she ever entertained people around her. Then why was it, that the loneliness was only hitting now?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock. She fixed her dupatta and looked up. It was Jamini. Dhanalakshmi immediately tried to divert her attention elsewhere.

"Kya mein....?"

"Hmm, aayiye."

Jamini walked to a chair near the desk Dhanalakshmi sat at. It was a huge room with many windows. But they had all been shut with the curtains pulled over. A pungent scent had taken over the room.

"Aap thik hein-?"

"Yahaan meri thabiyath ke baare mein baath karne aayi hain aap? Toh haan, thik hoon mein. Karodo ka dhandha chalta hain mere wajah se. Thik toh hona padega."

This probably wasn't the best time to talk, but Jamini was already here.

"Jab se Kanwal ji....aapke pathi guzre hain, sunne main aaya hain ki aap zyada kisi se baath nahi karti hain."

"Aisa kuch nahi hain Jamini ji. I have not relied on anybody to earn bread for my house or to take care of my company. I have never been too close to my husband nor my son. Loneliness is not something which affects me."

"You were not lonely before Dhanalakshmi ji. Aapne jisko bhi dhoor rakha tha, apne marzi se rakha tha. You were alone. Alone by choice. Par ab jo Khaalipan hain......it is not by choice. Yahi farak hota. Being alone is by choice, but being lonely never is."

Several moments passed by, neither of them spoke. Jamini cursed her timing. This was definitely not what she wanted to put across. Dhanalakshmi finally broke the silence.

"Meri maa thi na, she was very clever. But where would our household put up with clever women. She assumed she had no choice but to suppress herself. But it suffocated me to see her toil hard to make our house liveable when she could've been doing any job she wished to, with more credit to her name. So when I was married away, I had only one goal. To live life without any credits due. After many years I opened Dhanalakshmi sweets.

But in the process of achieving my goal, I only ever cared about establishing my name and getting my credits. Something which started off as a Woman's fight against the society turned into something personal. Somewhere i forgot that I myself am a woman, a daughter of another woman who was oppressed in this society.

I brought my son up, teaching him only how to run a business, never how to treat people around him. I remember the first time he hit his wife in front of me. We were in a business meeting. But all I wanted was for the drama to end there. I asked her to leave and excused my son. And then I did it again and again and again until i couldn't care about it anymore. But I have nobody to blame. It is all my greed for a name for myself which turned me into the person who brewed my greed. Life has come full circle."

Now it was Jamini's turn to speak.

"Rani ne bataya aapke chitti ke baare mein..." Dhanalakshmi sighed.

"Aap apne aap ko jitni buri samajthi hain, uthni hain nahi. Haan, galthi hui hain. Par koi galti itni bhi badi nahi hoti ki use maaf na Kiya jaa sake."

After a silence of another hundred moments, Dhanalakshmi spoke again. "Magar Maine kab kahaan ki mein khudko buri samajthi hoon?"

Jamini broke a sweat, "Nahi, mera matlab yeh nahi tha...-"

She was interrupted by a chuckle. Dhanalakshmi smiled in turn making Jamini smile. Atleast the visit was a success.

.

.

.

@janaknandini-singh999 aap hi ke misunderstanding se likha gaya hain ye ;)

[second-hand-jawaani]

Everybody's raging about Rani's sarees from RRKPK when the truth is Varsha Ghotala from Badi Door Se Aayein Hain did it first.

[fangirlingintellectual]

Is it just me or is Firstprince a LITTLE, just a lil Rocky aur Rani coded?

Like, Henry has a CRAZY amount of wealth (So does Rocky)

Henry has a BITCH Grandma (uh, so does Rocky)

Alex has over-accomplished parents, each breaking stereotypes in their own way and so much familial support (Show me something more Rani-coded)