I know a lot has been written over the movie Cocktail till
date. Nothing I write will be original. But it is not about being original, but
saying what has to be said.
I had the immense privilege of watching ‘Cocktail’ yesterday
and I don’t regret it. For one, I needed mindless fun and that’s what it gave
me and for another it reinforced my belief that mainstream Bollywood movies are
the biggest pieces of turd on the pile of shit that is mainstream Indian
cinema.
Looking at the characters and the storyline, I can’t get
over the question as to what makes Gautam so charming that no girl can resist
him. He is obnoxious and disgusting. Even if you are going for the obnoxious
kind of manly man, he falls short. He is a playboy and unlike many playboys
(somebody tell me what is wrong with sleeping around.), he is a huge jerk. The defining
moment came when he called the hot ‘gori’ in Capetown, an ‘item’. That is what
women are to him. Pieces of body parts. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to fall
in love with him unless she has a very, very low esteem. The director seems
have a very low opinion of Indian women.
Then let us go to the ohsodesi Meera. Ewwww. As in ewwwwww. Where
is the Indian woman in Meera? Where are the loud, giggly ones? Where are the
ones who would beat you to a pulp if you do wrong by them? Where is the lovely
gregariousness? Apparently all good women have found religion and we pray all
the time and we pick after other people’s clothes and make an apartment ‘homes’.
Seri-fucking-ously? When Gautam fell in love with Meera, I found myself asking
if all the women empowerment in India had failed. Here was apparently the
epitome of ‘desi’ness where there… nothing. Meera hardly has any quality which
surpasses those you could get in a good maid. A quiet, invisible, maid with a
very weak screen presence, if I may add. So the makers of the movie just wanted
to emphasize the caution that the men of the house always wants to fool around
with the maid. Even while Veronica says that she can manage everything except
what Meera has ‘from within’, I am confused. What exactly is that? The dumb
look she constantly has on? Or is it that big void that Indian women are urged
to cultivate? The drama of domestication. Also, while Veronica is damaged
because of her parents’, there is not even a glimpse of the manifestation of
Meera’s loss. What her parents’ death did to her. It seems like the premise was
written into the script to elicit a collective sympathy sigh from the audience
for the poor homely, humble, pure Indian girl with the long black hair.
I have to say that the saving grace of the movie was
Veronica. At least till the Director decided she needs to become a whiny piece
of mess as to elevate the relative status of the infantile hero and the
invisible heroine. I loved her from the moment she came on screen. Unabashedly
free, independent spirit, fierce, able to do anything she wants, she is what
life is all about. She doesn’t say sorry to anyone. And the high point of her
character was her resilience. Who wouldn’t want an honest woman like that? In
the era when the urban Indian woman celebrates series like Sex and The City, it
seems an abomination to not have let Veronica have the guy. Frankly, I am a bit
repulsed that she would want a guy like him for anything more than sex. But unfortunately
for us, the repulsive guy has the best sperms in the gene pool and he is a gem.
Unless he has one shoved up where the sun doesn’t shine, I fail to see where
the gem is.
So all in all, Cocktail is what every feminist and every
self respecting woman loathes. A mish mash of age old concoctions of the wisdom
in covering up and ‘acting like a girl’ (Pro-rapist film indeed.) masqueraded
as a chic, urban trope which would please the middle class Indian audience. It
is like marinating your brain in morphine, adding some garam masala in it and
frying it with some rubbish. Well… at least you can save money on your movie
snack.
