Gehraiyaan review – Deepika Padukone mesmerises in a torrid drama

Romance in your 30s is no puppy-love business: youthful idealism ebbs with each passing year, while regrets gradually encroach. Setting sail in the muddy waters of modern relationships, Shakun Batra’s star-studded Hindi drama shows that infidelity is never a simple affair.

Haunted by her parents’ unhappy marriage and her mother’s suicide, Alisha (Deepika Padukone) is stuck in a cycle of stagnancy that encompasses her yoga-instructor job and her boyfriend Karan (Dhairya Karwa). On a seaside weekend with her cousin Tia (Ananya Panday) and her fiance Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi), Alisha is paradoxically attracted to and unnerved by their lavish lifestyle, whose flashy allure starkly contrasts with the modest home she shares with struggling writer Karan. When Zain makes a brazen pass at her, it spirals into a torrid flurry of hotel sex and illicit messages. Promises of commitment are exchanged only to be delayed, as Zain’s real-estate business depends on investment from Tia’s parents. What starts out as a breezy liaison soon warps into a resentful brew of paranoia.

While the lurid twists and turns are enjoyable in a 90s erotic thriller kind of way, the sudden shift towards suspense hampers Padukone’s performance. And what a performance it is! Though Alisha is caught up in crisscrossing relationships, in her few solitary moments an aching sense of loneliness emerges as she is let down by every male figure in her life. While Padukone lights up the screen, Gehraiyaan could have used the economical writing of Ijaazat (1987) or Masoom (1983) – two classic and, to be honest, better films about romantic betrayal.

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