Cocktail 2 Review: Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Rashmika Mandanna’s Film Reduces Relationships To A Joke
A Gen Z rom-com with a millennial soul and the heart of an overgrown child, Cocktail 2 is a hit-or-miss mix of tips about life, love and uncharted adventures in Sicily that do not fully dissolve into the breezy, pulpy potion that the film seeks to serve up.
The pearls of wisdom that it bandies about stick out rather awkwardly as another menage e trois led by a young man in an open relationship navigates the ebbs and tides of the heart and the desires of two women who are polar opposites.
Coming 14 years after Cocktailwhich was about two equally dissimilar ladies making impulsive choices, right or wrong, and holding up a mirror to the wayward ways of an entitled, commitment-phobic philanderer, the follow-up scampers in a different direction and winds up (along with its three principal characters) in a place where confusion runs riot.
The 2012 hit, scripted by Imtiaz Ali, did not sugarcoat the flaws of the man in the love triangle nor did it cast the two girls in victim-versus-vixen mould. That allowed ample room for unpredictable twists that held up well even when they seemed somewhat stretched.
Nothing of that sort comes to pass in Cocktail 2, produced by Maddock Films and Luv Films and directed by Homi Adajania. Adajania’s directorial methods accommodate for the predilections of a new generation of filmgoers but do not let go of the emphasis on endless conversations.
For all its buoyancyCocktail 2 is somewhat undermined by a hard-to-digest premise – a woman enlists a one-time hostel roomie to seduce her live-in partner in order to test his loyalty. Inevitably, trouble ensues.
The far-fetched plot device reduces relationships to a joke. The male protagonist acknowledges as much late in the film. Tum Both of them have been making fun of me, he thunders angrily when matters go out of hand. But that is not to say that the film is totally devoid of bright spots.
The moments that click rest largely on the three leads (Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna) straining every sinew of theirs to make the illogical and implausible pass muster. It is a tough ask but the actors do not stop trying. Full marks to them.
They, however, succeed only sporadically because the storyline not only strains credulity but also hinges on the audience’s willingness to completely suspend disbelief and relate to a grown-up trio behaving like schoolkids playing practical pranks on each other.
Kunal (Kapoor) and Diya (Mandanna) have been a couple for 16 years but have never felt the need to get married despite societal pressures. In a drunken state, Kunal jokes that if he ever cheats on Diya, the latter would never be able to find out. I am not a fool, he brags. Diya smells a rat but all is quickly forgiven.
To celebrate the patch-up, they go on a ten-day holiday to sunny Sicily with the money they have saved by not marrying. There, they run into Ally (Sanon), an old friend Diya meets after a decade. But with doubts still niggling her, Diya suggests that Ally flirt with Kunal to see where he draws the line.
The fun and frolic that follows injects some degree of energy, if only of an ersatz variety, into the film. Ally, averse to settling down, runs away from anything that could usher boredom into her life. In Sicily, where she teaches dance after a stint as a bartender, she not only welcomes Diya and Kunal into her home, she also has the duo eating off the palm of her hand.
The fake dalliance between Ally and Kunal inevitably unleashes trouble especially when, at the halfway mark, Diya springs a wedding ring upon the man in her life. Cut to Delhi, where preparations for the nuptials get underway. I don’t like weddings, intones Ally. But what happens in Sicily does not stay in Sicily.
How the irrepressible coquette deals with ‘rejection’ and what actions she resorts to in the aftermath constitute the second half of Cocktail 2. Rashmika Mandanna’s character recedes to the background in these facile passages and Kriti Sanon’s footloose and fun-loving seductress takes over.
Even if you manage to get past the unlikely gullibility of a woman trusting a friend she hasn’t met for ten years, you are bound to falter when it comes to fathoming how Ally manages to get so much time for herself with Kunal, both in Sicily and in Delhi at the end of the Italian sojourn.
The girls, “not such good friends” by their own admission, fight over the man and the film gets busy with – and this is where we get into Luv Ranjan territory – projecting the guy as somebody who is so pure and altruistic that he isn’t easy to sway.
Being bright, bubbly and brassy is one thing, making sense is quite another. Thanks to the sustained gloss on its surface, Cocktail 2 is great to look at. The Sicilian portions, visually lush, are the film’s high points.
But amid a welter of emotional tugs and pulls that stay confined strictly to the characters and do not spill out of the screen and take the audience into the swirl, the film is like an ebullient dancer who has a spring in the feet but weighed down by a millstone-sized hangover.
The actors carry much of the onus. Shahid Kapoor is as steady as a rock even when the film isn’t. Kriti Sanon not only enhances the sensuality quotient but also goes beyond being skin deep. Rashmika Mandanna, playing the sedate Diya, pulls off the more dramatic passages with aplomb but is often relegated to a secondary role.
Talking things out can solve problems, somebody says in the film. But when talk replaces action and turns into to empty prattle, verbosity strikes. That is why Cocktail 2at least large parts of it, isn’t quite as heady as the makers would have wanted it to be. Its appeal is intermittent and fleeting.
