Krishna and His Leela (2020)

This was more entertaining than I was expecting from the premise- a guy in his 20s trying to juggle between his romances. Yeah, nice Ranbir Kapoor reference. Howeverrr, I was pleasantly surprised? The movie felt more like an Indian version of (500) Days of Summer (2009), in that it tried to expose the man-child behaviour of the male protagonist instead of blaming the female protagonist(s) for... basically, the guy facing the consequences of his own actions. Also, another thing that I liked about the movie was that it didn't go over-the-top in its treatment of the millennials- you know what I'm talking about right? The KJo-ification of millennials, if you will: the whole notion that they're all commitment-phobic immoral assholes who just do what they want, without a flying fuck for other people and their feelings. Uh huh.

The characters in this movie, on the other hand, feel normal and familiar. I am so sure I have heard this convoluted tale of cheating before, and well, what can I say. Men need to be stopped. And slapped. (I did slap my ex boyfriend, so technically I have contributed to the smashing of patriarchy). There is however, a manic pixie dream girl, who was so typically the male fantasy of the "modern woman" that I ended up rolling my eyes whenever she appeared on screen or opened her mouth. The other gals, though, were fresh and real, and Sathya (Shraddha Srinath) had such solid #feminism moments, that honestly made up for the manic pixie dream girl. I also liked the mother (Jhansi) and the sister, Arya (Samyukta Hornad), and how they had no compunctions in calling their son/brother out for being a big-time jerk. Yaaasss kweeeens, slay!!

Another thing that I realised because of this movie is that personally, I find few things as entertaining as love triangles (or just one individual juggling multiple lovers/love interests) in movies, provided they are well-written, well-enacted, and most importantly, FUNNY. Krishna and His Leela certainly fits into all those categories, rightttt up till before its end. I am so not a fan of the ending, and I wish it could have been radically different, especially, the very last scene. Sigh.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that throughout most of the movie, I was severely annoyed by Siddu Jonnalagadda's acting (he plays Krishna), and thought I'll rant about it in this "review", but somewhere around the middle I realised that this is exactly how most boys of my generation act. I am talking about the facial expressions and body language by the way, not the morality, which is also very apt though. Genius? Or just a happy coincidence? Whatever it was, bonus points for truly capturing the essence of an entire generation. Whatta wow. 

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