‘Cocktail 2’ Movie Review: A Love Triangle Bereft of Taste and Spirit

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the hit of the year, Curry Barker’s Obsession. The horror film revolves around a lonely young man named Bear whose desperate wish — that his pretty coworker Nikki falls for him — comes true with terrifying consequences. The predatory entitlement of his wish turns her into a monstrous and obsessive girlfriend who loves without autonomy. It’s a neat subversion of the date-movie template. But I kept wondering why the movie left me unaffected. Worse, I didn’t find the mutating Nikki so shocking or scary. While walking out, it struck me. I realised that mainstream Hindi cinema has normalised women (in love) written by men for decades. I see an agency-free Nikki on screen in a flashy Bollywood entertainer every other week. Except, they’re presented as sane and new-age women by Bear-coded makers without a hint of satire. In other words, Cocktail 2 ruined Obsession for me before it was even made.

If Homi Adajania’s Cocktail (2012) — where playboy Archie chooses homely Betty over bohemian Veronica — was spiritually a Luv Ranjan movie, this spiritual sequel is actually one. Written by Ranjan and Tarun Jain, Cocktail 2 is somehow backward even in its forwardness. This time, cool chef Archie (Shahid Kapoor, as Kunal) is in a stable live-in relationship with college sweetheart Betty (Rashmika Mandanna, as Diya) in Gurgaon, until saucy Veronica (Kriti Sanon, as Ally) gatecrashes their obscenely expensive and digitally sun-kissed Sicily vacation. Modernity is treated as an illness in such movies. Cocktail 2 thinks it’s reversing the sexism and gender roles of the two-men-fighting-for-one-woman template, but it’s really just reboxing the handsome meninism of hits like Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, Pyaar Ka Punchnama and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety. Here it’s one man, two women and countless facepalms.

Poor Kunal’s feelings are toyed with, despite being the Good Guy and Faithful Boyfriend. Diya doubts his nature because he is reluctant to get married. So what does she do? The tradwife-coded Diya convinces her pal Ally — who by the way lives in Sicily like a free spirit (an AI retelling of Katrina Kaif’s character from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) — to seduce Kunal and see if he fails the test. Ally takes up the challenge, Diya ditches plans so that the other two can be together, Kunal becomes tasty prey, and naturally, Ally grows real emotions for him along the way. The second half unfolds in Gurgaon, because what is a woke rom-com without a contest to objectify the prize and win them over? The film might have us believe that it is treating Kunal the way hapless heroines are treated in most romcoms: up for grabs. But its contempt for species other than man is evident.

I’d respect movies like Cocktail 2 if they confessed to their threesome and cuckolding kinks instead of being the flower-kissing versions of sexual fantasies. (Alternate title: The Lifestyle of the Rich and Polygamous). When it’s not busy serving cringe as a music-video aesthetic, it is essentially Emotional Atyachar — or any popular reality show peddling B-grade loyalty tests — disguised as a playful rom-com. To nobody’s surprise, the film’s idea of pitting comfortable companionship (he affectionately compares Diya to a worn-out cupboard) against passionate love contains the depth of a soggy grape. It doesn’t help that everyone’s drinking all the time (I love alcohol as much as the next broke writer, but the film sees it as an upper-class hobby), and they manage to have the most boring food in Sicily: a crime worse than the designer-joblessness of the throuple.

In the process, the film turns Diya into a broad-daylight sociopath and one of the most unlikable female characters in recent memory. The men in the audience are invited to feel victimised and magnanimous in no particular order. And Ally, an exotic descendant of the character that catapulted Deepika Padukone into the spotlight, exists to manipulate Kunal into believing that Diya is his compromise (she is) and his habit. I half-expected Kunal to unleash a twist in the end where he admits that he knew he was in a perverse test all along and decided to enjoy himself anyway, but letting the man have the last laugh would be so 2011 of the writing. So it lets him have the last cry instead.

Even if one were to forget the blissfully silly gender politics, the artifice of the film-making extends to the broad-strokes performances (Kapoor’s swag is too predictable), the real-estate-brochure-like production value (Gurgaon needs a break), the curated score and conflicts, the skimpy detailing, and the general affinity towards empty-calorie storytelling. Most of the scenes drip with good-looking misogyny. Like when Ally decides to walk around naked in the apartment at night (it’s a cultural thing) to tease Kunal. Or when Diya excitedly calls her to find out if her long-term boyfriend has cheated as if she’s fishing for gossip on someone else’s life and not her potential soulmate. Or when Ally says “Ciao, my bellas” instead of a simple “Good morning” because she’s Italian like that. Or when Best Boy Kunal surprises a homesick Ally with fresh kadhi-chawal and they have an accident so that she can lick it off the window. Or when she hugs a homeless man and sheds tears so that Kunal can notice the siren’s golden heart.

I could go on with puns on how this cocktail is (too) spiked, but I’d rather describe the opening scene. Kunal is introduced as a successful and dashing restaurant owner who charms a table full of rude Gen-Z girls by offering them an exclusive off-the-menu item. He then rushes to a roadside stall, buys a plate of golgappas, and packages them with fancy shot-glasses and cutlery for the diet-conscious customers. Some metaphors write themselves (in red ink). In a parallel universe, Diya and Freaky Nikki are best friends and tragic male fantasies who haunt their puppeteers and share notes. But only one of them knows they’re in a horror film.