Madhavan revisits Tanu Weds Manu Returns with Subhash K Jha as the Aanand L Rai directed film celebrates 10 years.
Tanu Weds Manu Returns takes us into the turbulence and terror of a stagnant marriage, stripping in the process all the tragic solemnity of Basu Bhattacharya’s Aavishkar. My favourite scene of domestic discord has not Madhavan but his screen father (K K Raina, brilliant) trying to explain to his son why a marriage must be kept going even as his wife nags incessantly in the background. The violent conclusion to this sequence typifies Aanand Rai’s incredibly powerful grip over the grammar of satirical drama.
Rai can shock even as we laugh our heads off. I purposely bring up Aavishkar, as it is the only film on marital discord that captures the boredom of a couple who can’t stand each other anymore. Rajesh Khanna looks contemptuously at Sharmila Tagore and says, “Before marriage, I loved to see you in good clothes. Now it doesn’t matter what you wear. I only like to see you out of your clothes.”
Tanu and Manu’s marriage is even more troubled. As they inform the shocked marriage counselors, they don’t have sex anymore. Dammit, they don’t have much mutual respect, either. She puts him into a mental asylum in London and rushes back home. There begins the comedy of errors, charted in a plot strewn with wrecked herrings—not to be confused with red herrings—as the path that Rai charts with wry relish for his squabbling couple is strewn with shards of irreversible damage.
And there lies the beauty of the disharmonious landscape that Rai constructs as Manu meets Tanu’s lookalike Datto, a Haryanvi athlete with an accent so thick you could cut raw jackfruits with them.
Ranaut, as Datto, plays the girl as a vulnerable bumpkin with strong values. This is a chick no one would want to mess with. She can enter an upper-class ladies’ soiree and make then say sorry for being selfishly snobbish. To no surprise, Datto gets the better of Tanu in their sumptuous confrontation sequence.
But that comes much later. There is so much more happening here. There is an endearing energy to the narrative as it winds its way through the crowded lanes and bazaars of Kanpur. The ensuing chaos is simply a joy to behold because it’s a raw, unvarnished, and never experienced before.
Aanand Rai turns the double-role concept on its head. The two Ranauts are in no way similar except that they resemble one another for the express purpose of haunting poor Manu’s marital troubles with echoes of a renewed hope with voices from the past.
Rai makes the complexity of a weak, dithering hero falling in love with a girl who resembles his wife seem easy and fluent. It’s a complex contrivance made accessible by the ease with which Kangna plays the two roles, as though it were two actresses and not one playing the two main female parts.
As we already know, TWMR is a bonafide sequel. All the main characters, barring one, are already a part of Tanu and Manu’s existence from beforehand. They slip into their pre-destined parts without fuss and with the confidence of crazy but confident astronauts (astro-nuts?) who knows their way around Mars better than most earthlings.
The one new character in the film is my favourite in the film. He is a sharp but impetuous rookie lawyer who stays forcibly in Tanu’s family home without paying rent and quickly gets besotted by her after she returns. He is played by the very talented Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. It’s a performance to cherish, no matter how you look at it.
Not that the other actors miss even a beat in their role call. From the ever-dependable Jimmy Sheirgill and Deepak Dobriyal (reprising their earlier roles with rollicking relish) to newer entrants into the cluttered but never claustrophobic world of Tanu and Manu …every actor adds colour and vibrancy to the drama, as does the music and the songs which are …well, unique, for the want of a better word.
Ah, the words! Himanshu Sharma’s writing is virile and edgy without ever crossing the limits of decorum. It’s like listening to a song which arouses basic passions without simulating groans and moans.
A word about Madhavan’s performance. It’s easy to miss his reined-in excellence, especially when Ranaut has a double crowd-pleasing role. Madhavan balances out the excesses in Ranaut’s characterizations, irons out the rough edges. He is the voice of reason in a universe ruled by borderline bi-polarity.
Not since Lage Raho Munnabhai has a sequel asserted such superiority over its precursor. Tanu Weds Manu Returns sparkles and dazzles with its delectable synthesis of the scintillating and the sassy. With his third winner in a hat-trick of triumphant films (after Tanu Weds Manu and Raanjhanaa), Aanand Rai asserts his place among the most astute original and culturally sensitized filmmakers we have today.
Madhavan is a fearless actor. When asked if he was “intimidated” by his Tanu Weds Manu co-star Kangana Ranaut, who had a double role in the sequel, Madhavan gives a calm reply. “No, I was not intimidated. Why should I be? She was my co-star in Tanu Weds Manu and its sequel, and a wonderful supportive and genial co-star.”
Madhavan has wonderful memories of playing Manu in the two films. “The director, Aanand Rai, is a dear friend. He somehow brings out the best in all his actors. I was certainly at home playing the quiet Manu.”
Madhavan who gave a superlative performance in the Nambi Narayanan biopic , feels playing silent characters is very difficult. “Especially in our country where the extroverted character gets the audiences’ attention. I’ve always liked exploring silences on screen. Mani Ratnam was one director who allowed me to explore silences. Aanand Rai is another.”
Responding to why Aanand Rai has not worked with Madhavan since Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Madhavan chortles, “It’s not as if we are obliged to work with one another. I know Aanand will come to me when he has something as challenging as Manu for me. I know it is a hard act to follow up. But didn’t Aanand follow up Tanu Weds Manu with a sequel? And both were big successes.”
Tanu Weds Manu Returns picks up the threads of the story from exactly where we left off the characters four years ago. Kangna and I are four years older than we were in the first film. So are all the actors, young and old.”
Then comes Madhavan’s shocking revelation. “My director Aanand and I have used the junior artistes from Tanu Weds Manu to play the same characters in the sequel. A couple of them were kids with bit roles in the first film. We were not sure how they had grown up and what sort of talent they still had within them. But Aanand was adamant. He wanted to maintain complete continuity from the first film to the second. A little girl from the original who had a small part has a far bigger part to play now. The way she has evolved as an actor blew our minds. We’ve worked hard on the look and continuity. I remember how I was fully hands-on while doing Tanu Weds Manu. Aanand and I virtually got the project going from scratch. I was far more relaxed with the sequel.”
