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 ...
Brian is a struggling writer who is in this writer's block moment who has a deadline to submit. He desperately needs human connection and love but for whatever reasons, every guy he meets wants ti just have hot passionate sex and nothing more afterwards. His many hookups include one fleeting moment with Jim. Jim is a young, beautiful, struggling actor who has just walked out on his lover Drew, an artist who fails to be able to connect to the world because he is too lost in his art. Finally we meet Bob, a talent agent from L.A. in his sixties who is being driven around in his white limo until he finds the right boy to pick up, well why not, he can afford it. In the process he ends up picking up Jim.
The film is shown over the course of one night with each of the four main characters introduced separately but as the film progresses their lives become intertwined. The character that runs through the middle of the narrative is Jim. He touches upon the stories of all of the men and over the course of the night he embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Chance encounters with both Brian and Bob help him to take a look back over his life and his decisions with surprising outcomes. ON paper the concept must have been interesting: 4 men of different backgrounds, age and ethnicities cross their paths over the course of one night but it fails in execution. None of the characters was fully developed for me to invest in them as an audience and as a result there is no connection at all. There are some elongated suggestive sexual scenes and moments of gaze and silence which become very tiring after a while. Towards the end, the film starts to find a little heart but all too quickly resolves before the morning sun rises.
The film could have been a very powerful one addressing the difficulty that modern gay men have balancing the physical and emotional connect in today's fast moving world where sex is so easy, but we just get that in bits and pieces. (4/10)
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