Bawaal (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – A small-town man who falls in love with the most beautiful girl in town. He wants to marry her one day because marrying her can rise up his social position.

My Take – With charming entertainers like Chillar Party (2011) and Bhoothnath Returns (2014), and blockbusters in the form of Dangal (2016) and Chhichhore (2017) behind him, National Award writer-director Nitesh Tiwari‘s next was always going to be a hyped venture, mainly due to his well proven ability to deliver a varied presentation rooted in sensible reality.

Produced by Earthsky Pictures and Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment and streaming on Amazon Prime Video, his latest too is no different. Acting as a mixture of past and present, a WWII backdrop in Europe with a modern day middle-class family story in Lucknow, the resulting feature is an ambitious romantic drama, which is very different from the routine love stories one has seen so many times before. An enjoyable diversion from the regular sentimental dramas Hindi cinema usually churns out.

Based on a story by Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, who herself is renowned for writing and directing quirky films such as Nil Battey Sannata (2016) and Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017), here, director Nitesh Tiwari, who co-wrote the film with Piyush Gupta, Nikhil Mehrotra, and Shreyas Jain, weaves a story on love and war that’s both poignant and heartrending, yet has enough light moments and romance without one element overpowering the other. All the while also teaches some life lessons.

Yes, at times the film gets a bit clunky and might end up repelling some viewers as how the film reduces World War II to a self-help marriage manual. Nevertheless, the whole tale possesses a rare kind of simplicity and elegance that makes it an engaging watch.

Set in Lucknow, the story follows Ajay Dixit, aka Ajju (Varun Dhawan), a hotshot history teacher, who has faked his way through life. Ashamed of his very ordinary life, Ajay has built a carefully crafted image of a confident, seemingly wealthy and popular man. As a result, he’s considered something of a hero by his students and extended community, much to the exasperation of his long-suffering parents (Manoj Pahwa and Anjuman Saxena).

He even decides to marry Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor), an independent and well-educated woman who has been unable to find a match due to her medical disorder, because a good looking trophy wife would be good for his image. But when Ajay witnesses her epileptic fits episode on their marriage day, he begins to think otherwise, and then bars her from stepping out of the house and mistreats her at home.

However, when an incident at his school leads to his suspension with pending disciplinary action, Ajay convinces his father to finance a honeymoon trip with Nisha to Europe. The same trip in which he will complete his History syllabus on World War II by conducting online classes from the holocaust sites itself. But as he begins to navigate through the course of love and war, his supposed honeymoon and history lessons begin to collide.

While the first half largely relies on comedy and simple drama, the captivating element begins post-interval with the WWII recreations. As the couple travel through Paris, Normandy, Amsterdam, Berlin and Auschwitz, they relive the horrors of the deadliest conflict in history.

Each scene then turns into a history lesson, with director Tiwari inserting dramatic black-and-white recreations of the war at each location. All the sequences at Omaha Beach, Anne Frank’s house, and the concentration camp are intense and splendid. The gas chamber sequence particularly being a standout.

Rediscovering love against the backdrop of the World War II is no doubt a unique concept, and while the film does not offer much in terms of the duo’s romantic encounters or Ajay turning into a new leaf, director Tiwari‘s knack for creating intriguing characters and scenarios makes everything feel fresh yet familiar at the same time. With the underlying goal behind all his actions, questionable or inspirational, are rooted in wisdom. Like how maybe there’s a Hitler in all of us, because he was never satisfied with what he had and neither are we.

Yes, film’s build-up is a tad sluggish, and it spends too much time over-explaining Ajay’s fabricated image, but the film’s loveliest passages have Ajay and Nisha finally talking. She is the kind who reads Tolstoy and Tagore, so she is more evolved in her thoughts than Ajay is. She slowly tells him things, for instance, that the alienation he feels in France is not all that different from the alienation a woman feels when she enters her husband’s home.

Nisha’s life lessons are done well, such as the real war we fight is looking outward for happiness and our undying greed. Also, the film’s treatment of the medical condition is sensible and sensitive. No blame games between families or hullabaloo from either side makes for a refreshing change.

Performance wise, Varun Dhawan excels as his familiar happy-go-lucky character who is very emotional at heart and plays it with sincerity and conviction. He is particularly excellent in the scene when he imagines being someone who has only 30 minutes and a small bag to pack his entire life, and what he has to prioritize.

Janhvi Kapoor does complete justice to her part with a remarkably restrained performance. She especially proves her mettle in the scenes she takes her husband through the painful history of the war. In supporting roles, Mukesh Tiwari, Prateek Pachori, Anjuman Saxena, and Manoj Pahwa stand-out. On the whole, ‘Bawaal’ is a poignant tale anchored by a surprising and ambitious story.