decoupled Review: A still from the series. (image courtesy: youtube ,
Mold: R Madhavan, Surveen Chawla, Arista Mehta, Darren Eric Scott, Akash Khurana, Asim Hattangadi, Mir Afsar Ali, Freesha Bomanbehram, Dilnaz Irani
the director: Hardik Mehta
Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
A quarrelsome married couple, neither Bergmansk nor Baumbachesque, navigate the growing acrimony and prepare for divorce. decoupled, a Netflix series produced by Bombay Fables and Vikramaditya Motwane Agitation, Unfortunately, the show is like a dying marriage. It falls apart.
decoupled Alternately thick and empty. This has no chance of ever speaking in the same breath as a long line of amazing movies (think scenes from one) Marriage, Marriage Story, Shoot the Moon, A Separation, Kramer Vs Kramer And an unmarried woman, et al) highlighted divorce and its consequences.
The series directed by Hardik Mehta, created and written by Manu Joseph, is an empty shell of a story. It removes the surface of a relationship burdened with innate incompatibility and unfulfilled expectations. What’s the big deal?
decoupled Similar to a long sentence that spins until it makes a paragraph disappear and is then reduced to an unimportant piece of a monotonous, circled chapter. To shorten a long sentence, a man and his wife realize that they are not made for each other and, with the choppy waters accompanying their marital relationship, they consider their separation even more than their marriage. Tough mountains are determined to be made.
The wit is weightless and the series tries to articulate the truth of the ‘battle of the sexes’, but is anything but illuminating. Not much percentage in swimming in shallow water, is it?
The affluent Gurgaon couple decided to go their own way, but don’t know how to pass the news to the parents of their 12-year-old daughter and woman in Mumbai. Their primary concern is to save their daughter, but they also debate the time of their separation, the change in the woman’s Facebook relationship status, and the steps they should take to look beyond marriage.
That man, Arya Iyer (R. Madhavan), is a pulp fiction writer who always plays catch-up with Chetan Bhagat (who, as himself, pops up at regular intervals to show the protagonist his place in the ranks of popularity). does).
decoupled Like much else in the series, puts “The Peking Order” in very literal terms. The jealous Arya tops Bhagat’s book on a bestseller rack and replaces it with his book not once but twice – once at a Gurgaon bookstore, and again at the Delhi airport. He is caught in the act himself on the second occasion by his rival, who says something about Arya being an alumnus of BITS Pilani and, therefore, not in his league.
Arya’s estranged wife, Shruti Sharma Iyer (Surveen Chawla), is an entrepreneur looking for a new fund in her venture capital firm. She has been married for three years, but she stays in the same house with Arya to hide the truth from her daughter Rohini (Arista Mehta). Shruti persuades a Korean tech billionaire (Darren Eric Scott) to boot because it’s good for business.
“You are such a disaster,” shouts Shruti after Arya is attacked by a bunch of villagers for uttering Arya’s four-letter word. He really is a disaster. Arya is a very unappealing guy, okay, but that’s not wrong with the character. Nor did R. Madhavan’s performance can be blamed for how he plays the role. Arya Iyer, as the protagonist of a marital crisis drama, just isn’t convinced.
provide decoupled is a playful satire and allows for some liberties in the way it envelops one of the two lead characters. But was it necessary to turn Arya Iyer into a caricature – a gentleman without a single soft bone in his body? He invites trouble for himself, whether it is a CISF jawan at the airport gate, a man praying in the prayer hall of the terminal building, his father-in-law (Akash Khurana) or a group of women in whom he is transgender. mistakes for. Ways to reduce credibility.
In contrast, Shruti, who mercifully, is neither a victim nor a villain, is a woman who pulls no punches to aggressively paint her ex-husband into a corner. Still, she hasn’t fully developed into a character that’s easy to get invested in and get excited about. It seems like she’s just going through the motions — we somehow stop caring — as the couple deals with the factors responsible for the marriage.
With the two major players deprived of the power to drag us into the trials and tribulations resulting from their failed marriage and impending divorce, decoupledDespite whip-smart decisive performances by Madhavan and Surveen Chawla, a remarkable background score by Rachita Arora and impeccable camerawork by Piyush Putty, it never rises above the ordinary.
Arya and Shruti are surrounded by many stereotypes – a ‘poverty’ economist (Mir Afsar Ali) who is, you guessed it, Bengali and a ‘festival’ filmmaker (Aseem Hattangadi) swears by Amartya Sen, who plays Netflix’s A flight attendant (Sonia Rathi) who is in an unreasonable haste to jump into bed with Arya, an ex-girlfriend (Freisha Bomanbehram) whose hips don’t lie and a life coach ( Pooja Sarup). Shruti is given advice on how to make the best of a bad deal.
Completing the picture is Guru Agni (Atul Kumar), the one-time CEO of a grocery start-up who is now a savvy with female followers in search of fulfillment. He moves on to intercourse and ovulation with the sharpness of the page column edited by Chetan Bhagat.
decoupled Wants to turn everything into a casual joke – liberal views, anti-intellectualism, climate activism, Islamophobia, the plight of migrant workers, the suffering of refugees and even a woman who has put on weight around her waist, overzealous waiter and a sweaty driver (can do when it comes to class divides) parasite too far behind?)
It’s not a lot of fun to watch (via a largely male, privileged glance) messy middle-aged men who have sex on their minds because they probably don’t get much action and who decide for themselves. Let’s not only do what women want but also what they need. but that’s it decoupled Despite the many women who propose, including misbehaving housewives, people who story.
Take an example. Arya, in the middle of a conversation with a streaming platform executive (Dilnaaz Irani) at an upcoming club in Gurgaon, thinks he has a right to joke about the urgent need to go to the lady’s room. “I know how a seven-star toilet affects a woman… It’s like reuniting a refugee with her homeland,” he says. There is no justice for the people.
She decoupled, primarily built around boys’ locker-room chit-chat, devoid of depth and deliberately full of discrepancies, doesn’t diminish all the senselessness it proudly displays.
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