Star Cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Roy Kapur, Ali Fazal, Konkona Sen Sharma, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sara Ali Khan, Anupam Kher, Neena Gupta
Director: Anurag Basu
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What’s Bad: Maybe the length of the second half, to an extent
Loo Break: Haha! Nice joke!
Watch or Not?: Yes. And not just in the metros!
Language: Hindi
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 162 Minutes
User Rating:
Metro In Dino (originally titled Metro… In Dino) treats human issues and relationships with a jadoo ki jhappi! Yes, the four couples—college-time sweethearts Shibani (Neena Gupta) and Parimal (Anupam Kher), Kajol (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Monty (Pankaj Tripathi), Shruti (Sara Ali Khan) and Akash (Ali Fazal), and Chumki (Sara Ali Khan) and Parth (Aditya Roy Kapur), go through their loving phases, tremors and earthquakes, tensions, a ‘mirthquake’ or two and of course the psychological traumas and their very ‘human’ responses to them.
That to be in a long-term relationship, one must fall in love with the same person again and again, is the core credo of this wonderful story on urban (and that need not be restricted to metros or cities) bonds. At some point, human beings do fall prey to temptations and infatuations, and yet in most cases, sanity prevails over less important or transient passions.
The four couples and their interplays lead to a happy culmination where love’s definition is extended to the terms ‘deep emotional understanding’ and ‘giving space.’ But there are gray zones, too.
Sandeep Shrivastava and Samrat Chakravarthy give voice (as in the excellent dialogues) to the powerful and brilliantly cinematic volcano of emotions suffused in Anurag Basu’s story and screenplay. The fragile tapestry of human follies and the depiction of innate strengths and motivations, often complex and even contradictory, are depicted with compassion and intimate skill by Anurag.
It is enough to note that this is one of the finest scripts to come out of Hindi cinema in recent times, and one can easily call this quasi-masterpiece a textbook on how to make socially-relevant yet commercial and music cinema.
Of course, I would have (like Neena Gupta’s character within the film) preferred a happier solution for Parimal’s granddaughter (Darshana Banik), but I guess some pain must be there in the picture (pun intended) of life in a metro!
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Someone once termed a mediocre (but successful in the 1970s) film as a “showcase of histrionics” based only on the performance of its two heroes! In that case, this film, with eight lead players and about 10 key supporting artists, must be termed a gigantic mansion of talent!
Tough as the critic’s job is, I would still single out—in alphabetical order, Aditya Roy Kapur, Konkona Sen Sharma, Pankaj Tripathi, and Sara Ali Khan as the toppers in the acting department, where the score of all the actors—big and small— together is 100 percent.
Konkona Sen Sharma once again shows the mettle of Mr. & Mrs. Iyer (2003) in her determined role. She is outstanding in the shades she exhibits—mercurial, fallible yet faultfinding, and finally, when she has a gorgeous time in Goa with a young man! She typifies a woman who can see others’ faults easily, but not her own!
As her husband, Pankaj Tripathi is yet again—need I even say it?—outstanding. If there is one actor in recent times who deserves higher recognition than the National Award he has already won, it is this mammoth artiste. The humour underlying his character and performance is simply delicious and adds to his impact as Monty.
Aditya Roy Kapur arguably gives his career-best performance, and his expressions and body language show the evolution of a super talent who needs star recognition. Sara Ali Khan (we all know she is a good actor) is a completely lovable package of a metro-centric youngster—charming, reckless, veneered, uninhibited, self-confessedly confused, and yet possessing values.
Yes, Anupam Kher (shockingly) and Ali Fazal do tend to be a little mechanical and over-self-conscious, but I guess they read too much into their roles and were allowed the freedom to do what they have done, and there are fleeting moments where both excel.
Neena Gupta puts in another beautiful turn as the mother who begins to enjoy her life very late. Fatima Sana Shaikh is patently sincere, underplaying her apparently simple but nuanced role.
I liked the way Darshana Banik essayed her role as Anupam Kher’s subdued yet confused and traumatized granddaughter. Saswata Chatterjee has a stereotyped character and comes into his own only in the last 30 minutes as a kind of modern-day Utpal Dutt. Of the four young men who lose out to the protagonists, Rohan Gurbaxani is perfectly pitched. The three teenage children are excellent.
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I would term Anurag Basu as a modern-day wizard of surpassingly memorable Hindi cinema. Imagine the versatile treasury he has handed us—Murder, Gangster, Life in a… Metro (of which this is a sequel in ‘spirit’), Barfi!, Jagga Jasoos and Ludo. The maestro has expanded his field beyond mere direction and writing. This time, he is one of the cinematographers as well, besides acting in the film as himself (along with Imtiaz Ali).
Anurag has a yen for ensemble casting, at which he is brilliant, as shown earlier in Life in a… Metro as well as Ludo. This time, he specially excels in his writing, direction, and the way he has presented his characters in a typically unique fashion. Individual situations are not lengthened needlessly, and the sharp intercuts of varied characters (that he has shaped with such passion) in similar moods or situations heighten the drama, while keeping it mercifully light in overall tone.
One gets completely involved in the characters, and the way he uses music (as with Life in a… Metro again, as well as Jagga Jasoos and Ludo) makes him a true-blue musical filmmaker of our times, a la V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Vijay Anand, Raj Khosla, Nasir Husain, Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai and today’s Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Anurag keeps even the music simple and directly filmed on the Metro band (Pritam, the composer, Papon, and Raghav Chaitanya) as well as the characters, by seamlessly merging the (meaningfully written by a bevy of lyricists) songs with his evocative background score. Pritam, in the last decade and more, is easily God’s gift to film music, and the coming together of this fantastic duo for the sixth time makes for a superb musical feast within the film.
But one does wish that Pritam’s music, as with Gangster, Metro, Barfi, and Jagga Jasoos, had a standalone and shelf-life quality. Over here, only Dhaagina Tinak Dhin and Aur Mohabbat Kitni Karoon seem to have some potential in this department.
In Dino, we get rare films where music is treated as a part of a movie. At least for that, if not for its overall content, I will strongly recommend Metro, for all, not just denizens of the metros!
Four and a half stars!
Metro In Dino releases on 04 July, 2025.
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