Tu Yaa Main

Tu Yaa Main Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Shanaya Kapoor, Parul Gulati

Director: Bejoy Nambiar

What’s Good: The gripping part of the survival drama

What’s Bad: Some minor issues, best not revealed here

Loo Break: No! Yaa yes, if you want to miss something!

Watch or Not?: Yes yaa Yessss!

Language: Hindi

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 150 Minutes

User Rating:

The story could be a classic rich-girl, poor-boy story. Could be? No, it is! But it takes a very different direction and dimension when the couple, Maruti (Adarsh Gourav), a.k.a. influencer Flopara from Nallasopara (a very distant suburb of Mumbai), and his now ladylove, Avani, a.k.a. Ms. Vanity (Shanaya Kapoor), get stranded in a fairly rundown hotel on the way to Goa because of inclement weather.

Why are they heading to Goa? Not to elope—that’s too 1970s! Lady just wants a break, as she is stressed for a reason I will not reveal here, as it is applicable to her but not really to the audience (as it turns out). But in that rundown place, with its backdrop of perilous backwaters, there is danger—a predatory crocodile with a taste for human flesh.

Tu Yaa Main Movie Review: Script Analysis

Indianized smartly by Himanshu Sharma from the original screenplay of the Thai film, The Pool, written by Ping Lumpraploeng, screenplay writer Abhishek Arun Bandekar’s dialogues are superb and crisp right from the beginning, when Maruti, a rapper from a lowbrow locale, has ambitions to make it big and catch the attention of an upper-crust social media influencer, Ms. Vanity, who has 2.3 million followers. He succeeds, and at first it is a casual friendship before it blooms into full-blown love. All this delights his loving mother, sister, associate, and buddies, but distresses Avani’s upper-crust sister, brother-in-law, and companion Lyra (Parul Gulati, wasted).

It is soon time for the coo-some twosome to head out for the aforementioned break, but after that, most of the footage is about how, by sheer bad luck and due to the malevolent mood of Nature, they encounter the reptile in an empty and ramshackle indoor swimming pool in the decrepit hotel amidst torrential rains. And there is no one around…!

Tu Yaa Main Movie Review: Star Performance

Adarsh Gourav has always been an enviably skilled performer; Guns & Gulaabs and Superboys of Malegaon are just two examples of his prowess. He excels at playing Flopara, the simple but hopelessly ambitious Marathi boy who wears his heart on his sleeve. At one point, he wonders if his rich girlfriend’s family may have murdered his family, a.k.a. the Marathi superhit, Sairaat, when his aim is to be a super-successful rapper like in Gully Boy. At another time, he asks Avani if she is trying to make him calibrate his own life vis-à-vis hers. But it’s all done with perfect nuances and expressions, including the fear, panic, determination, and hopelessness later, and the all-pervading love for her.

Shanaya Kapoor is a marked improvement over her debut disaster, Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyaan, in which she was cast in what was, mainly by her, of course, considered a “challenging” role. This role is simple, actually challenging, and a good fit for her natural persona. Yes, she still needs a bit of variety in her expressions, but that will emerge, I guess, over good directors and the all-important ‘right time.’

As Maruti’s bum chum, nicknamed ‘Fabric,’ Ansh Vikas Chopra is excellent, and Kshitee Jog, always known in Marathi films for the caliber of her performances as well as her immaculate film choices, is superb as Maruti’s mother. As the cop Tawde, Shrikant Mohan Yadav, makes a whopping mark. Parul Gulati as Lyra is hardly there. The rest are good.