Think of the hundred ways in which a story about the transformation of a small-town playboy can happen. Think of the hundred ways in which the sexist hero learns his lesson. Love? Heartbreak? Big city humbling? Grief? Falling for a feminist? Falling for a gangster? Falling for Ravi Kishan reels? Trust Bollywood, however, to find the 101st way. Trust mainstream Hindi cinema to come up with a gimmick that pretends to be entertaining and edgy and self-aware but is unwittingly creepy and regressive. Trust it to provide an answer to a question nobody asked: What if Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Dream Girl had a baby that grew up to become a Tanu Weds Manu fan stumbling out of the bar?
Because here’s how the cure for misogyny looks in Nakhrewaalii: our handsome hero cross-dresses as a sultry heroine for a month in Delhi in order to seduce ‘her’ way into a government job and meet the criteria set by the parents of the girl he falls for. He claims to do it for love. You’d think he reluctantly resorts to this identity swap; you’d think he finds it humiliating. But no, it’s a hidden talent. The man has a history of cross-dressing since he was a child. Apparently, he believes that women have it easy, so he likes to exploit the privileges of the gender. He’s always had that convincing feminine touch, those natural thumkas, and he feels very much at home manipulating lecherous male gazes to game the system. Who’s going to tell this film the truth?
Nakhrewaalii is the cinematic equivalent of that uncle who’s in denial about the queerness of his favourite nephew. The central character, Sumit Mishra (Ansh Duggal), name-drops Kabir Singh and behaves like a Luv Ranjan character early on. His masculinity goes into overdrive when he reaches Delhi with his bestie (Akash Makhija), enrolls in DU (where he ‘joins’ a students’ protest without knowing what it’s about), decides to woo a rich Veronica-coded college girl named Mihika, while being all flirty with his tenant’s daughter Paridhi (Pragathi Srivasthava). Sumit looks like he’s watched too many Kartik Aaryan, Ranveer Singh and Aditya Roy Kapoor performances on loop; Paridhi looks like she’s been made to watch Kangana Ranaut in Tanu Weds Manu on loop. We know she’s the one because she’s a male fantasy of the ‘perfect girlfriend’: that mythical mix of modernity and tradition. She wears a nose-ring, rejects male suitors, obeys her parents dutifully, does not work, cooks and cleans, but also smokes on the terrace and says cool things after everyone’s asleep.
In its pursuit of being funny and socially relevant, the writing is oblivious to its own insecurities. After they hook up, Sumit goes out of his way to sound like a jerk; he refuses to take responsibility for the consequences, blaming her for making the move only to be hit with a wave of conscience masquerading as love. Trust men to erase the difference between “I’m sorry” and “I love you”. He is irredeemably mean, so the choice to have him weaponise a female identity in the second half is less of a comedy and more of a B-grade Hollywood romcom trope from the 1990s.
Nobody recognises his alter-ego, Sumita, because if they did, how would we be subjected to a slew of middle-aged employees falling over the tall sari-wearing newbie in the office? How would we find the humour in one of the officers sending Sumita a dick pic on her first day only for her to send one back? How would the boss (Kumud Mishra) — who is also Mihika’s single dad — fall head over heels and dream of making Sumita his wife? How would there be a needless subplot of Sumit’s sisters assuming he’s married to a girl called Sumita? How would Paridhi be fine with not knowing what Sumit’s secret is when he keeps telling her that he’s doing so much for her but can’t tell her the details? How would the breakout actor from Raakh be reduced to the hero’s-best-friend stereotype? How would a film titled after a Kishore Kumar song mansplain the deep-rooted chauvinism of romance?
Nakhrewaalii tries to salvage its chaos by trying to be all meta about the message. It attempts to be self-reflexive, given that it comes from the producers of Tere Ishq Mein and Raanjhanaa. Sumit calls himself out a bunch of times towards the end, because he realises that — oh my god — women have to face eve-teasing, molestation and vile gestures every single day. The bar is so low that it’s no longer a metaphor; it is an actual bar where viewers see the world through beer bottles (‘toxic’ is just a subset of ‘intoxicated’). Between the glory of a government job and a problematic man, Nakhrewaalii reflects the flavour of a nation without meaning to. The seemingly subversive tagline is: Sometimes in love, even Majnu has to become Laila. Which is to say: men become famous tragedies by resorting to madness and suffering, but here’s one who’s willing to be a woman. Trust Bollywood to give you 102 reasons to distrust a woke tagline.