Gully Boy Review : A Passionate Love Letter To Music, Mumbai And The Magic Of Cinema
When confronted by the true power of pure art, no amount of analysis, understanding, preference or even coherence seems to matter. You are aware of only two feelings, either you can feel dwarfed by the magnanimity of it or let the sheer strength of brilliance empower the artist in you. Zoya Akhtar ’s film, Gully Boy is that art that both dwarves and empowers you.
An impassioned love letter to music, Mumbai, poetry and the magic that we call cinema, Gully Boy is cinematic brilliance at its rawest and utmost.
Every frame, every movement of every actor, every beat, every word is crafted with a love for moviemaking that is rare and oh-so-precious.
Coming to the story, it is not something that we have seen before. It is basically a one-liner about a boy from Dharavi who rises above all odds to become what he yearns for, someone who commands respect for who he is, which in this case is a rapper.
It is Zoya Akhtar and cinematographer Jay Oza who makes the magic happen. While it is predominantly Murad’s story, there are as many layers in the story as there are to the city of Mumbai. Peeling off this layer one by one is made all the more delicious because of the music which has been created by 54 indie artists and supervised by a marvelously talented Ankur Tiwari. For a film about music, it is the madness and passion of these indie artists that make this an experience of a lifetime.
Coming to the performances, one can try to sum it up in words, but even the ones with the most generous vocabulary would find it difficult to represent what Ranveer Singh has done with this character. He is naïve, innocent, pure yet simmering with intensity and rage that casts a spell. He is a storm that has been locked in a room and told repeatedly that he is nothing less than wind. He finds his voice only in his passion. With most of his shots ranging from tight close-ups to mid-long, Zoya has not given him an easy job. But Ranveer's dreamy eyes and steely resolve never falter for a second.
Alia Bhatt ’s Safina, on the other hand, is a rebel who does not bat an eyelid before breaking a bottle on a girl’s head, lie to her parents or blackmail Murad’s friend and threatens to get married to him if Murad does not call her. The t-shirt ‘Cute But Psycho’ should have been her ideal fit. But what binds them together is their sweet yet fierce romance and the fact that they want to rise above the limitation of their surrounding by being something more than just a rebel. Also, there are hardly any adjectives left in the dictionary to say how good an actor Alia Bhatt is, but this movie serves as a very strong re-affirmation of the statement.
But the strength of the performance does not lie in these two leads. Vijay Raaz , Amruta Subhash, Sheeba Chadda and Kalki Koechlin will make you forget that they are supporting cast and when they are on screen you can easily believe that it is their story you are witnessing. Praise must also be reserved for Vijay Varma who plays Moeen, one of Murad’s friend and the keeper of his darker side. And, then there is our man Siddhant Chaturvedi who is to Gully Boy what Vicky Kaushal was to Sanju . As Murad’s lightbringer and mentor MC Sher, Siddhant performs like he was born to be in front of the camera and do this role. People who have seen the Amazon Prime series Inside Edge might remember him as the prodigal bowler Prashant, but he is one of the best discoveries of Bollywood in the last few years. From his Mumbai accent to his rapper demeanor, he does not miss a single beat and commands equal attention in a film where actors like Ranveer and Alia are giving the best performance of their lifetime. Keep an eye on this guy because he and his talent is here to stay, for very long.
Zoya Akhtar’s direction makes this film an arousing underdog story, a compelling parent-children story, a heart-warming story of friendship, a love letter to the passion and madness of artists and musicians and an effervescent love story. Gully Boy is a montage of all these stories with each one being a masterpiece in itself that is held together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle by a superlative screenplay and editing. The film which could have easily become what some might call a ‘little too artsy’ is enlivened by Vijay Maurya dialogues which as empowering and strong as they are colloquial. A personal favorite would be 'sb comfortable ho jayenge to rap kaun banayega?" Zoya knows when to let her art flow and when to when to make a highly empowering and commercially viable Hindi cinema and she does it with a sense of balance that is immaculate.
A major shout out to the production design team as well who has so convincingly created this world Whether it’s the ‘kholis’ of Dharavi or lockups or the pristine apartments, everything looks authentic and lived in. The costume department also deserves applause for making the characters look real
It is also the love story of lens and Mumbai that makes this film almost surreal. From the meandering gullies of Dharavi and jampacked ‘kholis’ where desperation, chaos, and dreams breathe the same air, to the gentle middle class life that plays jump rope with norms to the immaculate and pristine high rises where things are slightly more vague and unsaid, Mumbai truly is a distinct character in the musical urban odyssey.
The slang sounds legit and raw and people do not drop accents in emotional scenes. It is the vast expanse of the city that brings underground hip-hop scene to the fanciest of the clubs and biggest of the stages together and lets everybody be a part of it. From carjackers to street kids who help run a small-time marijuana cartel in return of food, to the rich heiress who quietly cries in the car, tourist who revel in poverty porn, a girl who tries to be a rebel and fiercely protects her love, a musician who finds respite from his chaotic life in music and friendship, or the thousands of faceless strangers that just go by the motions of life without ever questioning it, both the story and the city lets these people be. Whether it is brutal apathy or quiet acceptance is something for you to figure out.
There is a scene in the film where Murad plays an English rap on his earphone while the utmost and abject realities of his life in a slum are unraveling in front of him. Somehow the Mumbai of Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy is the only place in the universe where the beats of these two seemingly divergent realities is in perfect sync.
Music, Mumbai, performances akin to poetry, being a dreamer, being a parent, being a child, being a friend, being an artists and looking for a push to believe in yourself are all legit reasons to watch the movie, but it’s a must watch for everybody who has laughed and cried, fallen and risen, loved and be loved and most importantly lived a life that is more significant than breathing.
