This Hindi movie is a pretty straightforward slice-of-life story that tries to give a modern look at what it's like to be a single, professional gay man. It dives into how he understands who he is, the chances he missed out on, and the personal choices he’s made along the way. The director used three parallel timelines to tell the story, which honestly didn't make much sense to me. While the core idea was actually pretty interesting, I really feel like this would have worked way better as a short film considering the point it was trying to make. Still, it wasn't a bad watch. The plot centers on Rachit, a city professional, and his friend Shikhar as they hang out for an evening. Rachit is a polished, urban guy, while Shikhar has more of a "small-town" rustic vibe, and you can really see the contrast between them when they talk. As the night goes on, Rachit starts thinking back to some old memories from a long time ago. He remembers being an intern after college in ...
Marius is a corporate lawyer in Vilnius. He is a player who spends time with friends and chasing young lovers for sex. The death of his estranged father shakes him and he finds himself striking up an unexpected relationship with a sex-cam worker, Ali, a Syrian man stuck in the refugee camp in Belgrade. Marius decides to take a trip a trip to Belgrade to meet Ali. The polar-opposite pairing ignites unexpected passion, with Marius using Ali’s unfortunate circumstances to uncover his own sense of purpose. Ali asks for Marius' help in moving to other part of Europe, which he initially refuses saying he is not an immigration lawyer, but eventually decides to help and manages to get him out of Belgrade.
As mentioned above, the story takes forever to come to the point. In between there is this side story of a very popular female artist, with whom Marius makes an unexpected friendship with. None of their scenes add any value whatsoever in the film. Even the scenes between Marius and Ali, they take forever to come to a point. They speak so slow that you feel like fast forwarding it. Its the troubled love story between Ali and Marius. interestingly Serbia doesn't have a special refugee program for LGBT individuals and neither is being gay legal in Lithuania. The film eventually becomes a metaphor for their isolation and marginalization in a time and a place (today’s Serbia) where “being different” is still problematic. This movie itself had lack of consistency and depth, feels like some characters play unnecessary roles. On a positive side, the leads actors really did a commendable job, but besides that I feel the issues of being gay, refugee and being in a country which doesn't support these were very lightly handled.
This film could have been so much better, shorter and very meaningful. Sadly, in my opinion, it misses the opportunity it had on its hands. (4/10)
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