Tu Yaa Main

बॉलीवुड में सर्वाइवल थ्रिलर जॉनर की फिल्में काफी कम बनती हैं। यही वजह है कि बिजॉय नांबियार की शनाया कपूर और आदर्श गौरव स्टारर फिल्म ‘तू या मैं’ को लेकर दर्शकों में खासी उत्सुकता थी। अच्छी बात यह है कि आज के मॉडर्न प्यार और इंफ्लुएंसर कल्चर के ताजगी भरे परिवेश, और जान बचाने की सांसें थामने वाली जद्दोजहद वाली यह फिल्‍म आपको आख‍िर तक बांधे रखती है।

The prominence of a crocodile in the promo material of Tu Yaa Main made me nervous. Don’t get me wrong. I love crocodiles. I’ve always had a soft spot for them; they like sunning and relaxing, and their snouts make it look like they’re always smiling. Before you think I’m weird (I am), there’s another reason for my fondness. You see, crocodiles have often gotten the short end of the stick at the movies. Unlike their more renowned colleagues — the dinosaur, the godzilla, the shark, the kong — they’ve rarely been the star of creature features. They’re often relegated to violent cameos in stories that don’t consider them agile enough to carry a whole film. Even the athletic ones in Mohenjo Daro and Phir Aayi Haseen Dillruba got a raw deal. That’s just reptile racism. So the publicity campaign of this film felt too good to be true. Given the names associated — director Bejoy Nambiar and Aanand L. Rai’s Colour Yellow Productions — I fully expected the crocodile to be a twisted gimmick. A red herring. Maybe the croc is hallucinatory, or worse, a brand prop (Lacoste?) used by two reckless influencers to go viral.

“Don’t romanticize my poverty to me,” says Maruti Kadam (Adarsh Gourav) to his ultra-rich influencer girlfriend Avani (Shanaya Kapoor) in Bejoy Nambiar’s Tu Yaa Main. It’s a laugh-out-loud line, but it carries the weight of a boy who has watched his world stagnate inside a 10×10 shanty. Avani, alias Miss Vanity, with her multi-million-following, likes to believe that money can’t buy happiness – who, perhaps, is one Virar-to-Churchgate local train ride away from abandoning philosophy to retreat to her plush Juhu pad. For Maruti alias Aala Flowpara, whose sister takes Marathi tuition and whose mother sells snacks to local shops, money is indispensable. He wouldn’t mind a richer life or a richer girlfriend if it widens his comfort zone.

It has its origins in the Thai thriller The Pool (2018) but writers Himanshu Sharma and Abhishek Bandekar give it a vibe that’s completely Mumbai when content creators from two ends of society meet for an “epic collab”. Director Bejoy Nambiar flags off with an effective beginning that has a woman teasing two men. The flavour: distinctly Maharashtrian. The introduction: deadly, as a crocodile makes its quick and early entry.