{"id":618,"date":"2010-03-01T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T16:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/03\/movie-review-dev-d-2.html"},"modified":"2021-06-30T00:52:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T04:52:46","slug":"movie-review-dev-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/03\/movie-review-dev-d.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Dev.D"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Rating<\/b> : \u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f 1\/2<\/em><\/b>
\nGenre<\/b><\/a> : Drama<\/b>
\nYear<\/b><\/a> : <\/b>2009<\/b><\/a>
\nRunning time : 2 hours 18 minutes<\/b>
\nDirector<\/b><\/a> : Anurag Kashyap<\/b>
\nCast : Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill, Kalki Koechlin, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Parakh Madan<\/b>
\nKid rating<\/b><\/a> : R<\/b>
\n
\n<\/b>
\nDEVD : THE POOR LITTLE RICH BOY !<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Anurag Kashyap\u2019s<\/a> version of Devdas, is the classic novel set in the modern day. So the path downhill, which our Dev takes, is varied, but it is downhill just the same. Abhay Deol plays Devinder, our spineless, selfish hero, who spurns his almost-girlfriend Parminder, once he suspects her of being unfaithful (no cast\/class card here as in the original). Pragmatic Parminder or Paro (Mahie Gill) moves on and marries Bhuvan, a middle-aged widower with kids. Once Paro is married, Dev pines for her, and having access to his rich father\u2019s funds, runs himself down with drugs and drink. Possible redemption looms on the horizon in the guise of prostitute Chanda (Kalki Koechlin), an Anglo-Indian woman with emotional problems of her own. Does Dev finally find what he\u2019s looking for, or do the two lost souls sink together ?<\/p>\n

This film has a wonderful cast, Deol<\/a> is fabulous as Dev, a spoilt, inveterate loser, with scant regard for anyone but himself. Kashyap\u2019s Dev is a grown-up child, pining away for what he cannot have. Existing on the fringes of the adult world, flush with Daddy\u2019s funds, and bereft of Paro\u2019s legitimate affection now that she is someone else\u2019s wife, Dev seems to exist in a hazy world propped up by alcohol and drugs.<\/p>\n

Mahie Gill as passionate Paro, and Koechlin as Chanda, the well-to-do girl come down in the world, are very good too. As in the original the female characters are way stronger than the male, and yes, you still can\u2019t sympathize with Devdas\u2019s character. Paro, in her modern avatar, is still situated in a conservative setup, although she isn\u2019t that demure herself. And Chanda\u2019s story is probably inspired by the MMS schoolgirl scandal of a couple of years back.<\/p>\n

This is a well made film with deft direction, great acting, and a pretty tight script. The music is in a class by itself, \u201cemotional atyachar\u201d probably everyone\u2019s favorite catchphrase of the year; I quite liked \u201cNayan barse\u201d myself. Kashyap\u2019s work seems to exist in an alternate, somewhat whacky universe; while the film seems to have earthy roots, Dev and Paro\u2019s families staunchly rural Punjabi families, we are also treated to surreal vignettes. There\u2019s Chanda in a nurse\u2019s uniform, in different wigs, mouthing husky French phrases, satisfying a client. There\u2019s Chanda again, facepainting Dev ? And there is this 3 men performance (in a bar\/pub), which I quite liked, but it seemed pretty far out. And then there is the \u201crock\u201d version of \u201cemotional atyachar\u201d. Surreal just about describes it. But even Kashyap\u2019s funky outlook on this classic, cannot change the fact that this is a journey down destruction lane, and mercilessly put, there is only so much voyeuristic \u201cbird-watching\u201d that one can do, before the novelty starts to wear off.<\/p>\n

This film does not work on the general \u201cgood\u201d protagonist scale, because there is not much redeemable about Dev, except that he does seem to have a smidgen of a conscience buried under all that vodka. As much as I admire Kashyap\u2019s \u201cvision\u201d and his ability to give a modern twist to such an old classic, and so flawlessly weave it into contemporary life, this film did not work for me. Not so much his fault, as the film\u2019s storyline\u2019s. All that quality goes down the drain, because I can\u2019t sympathize with the lead, and couldn\u2019t care less if he jumped off the nearest cliff. Also, all you Friday movie-watchers beware, although it has its moments, DevD is a dark, and somewhat depressive film. Watch it for the director\u2019s spin and the bevy of great actors that populate it.<\/p>\n

Kidwise<\/strong>: Unsuitable for kids, this one gets an R rating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : \u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f 1\/2 Genre : Drama Year : 2009 Running time : 2 hours 18 minutes Director : Anurag Kashyap Cast : Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill, Kalki Koechlin, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Parakh Madan Kid rating : R DEVD : THE … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70,90,76,14,87,15],"tags":[118],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-70","category-all-netflix","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-rating-r","category-recommended","tag-abhay-deol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":3,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : \u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f 1\/2 Genre : Drama Year : 2009 Running time : 2 hours 18 minutes Director : Anurag Kashyap Cast : Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill, Kalki Koechlin, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Parakh Madan Kid rating : R DEVD : THE … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-9Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9606,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/9606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}