Watching ‘DDLJ’ for the first time at 25 — and hating every minute

Thirty years. That’s however agelong this cinematic relic has been held aloft arsenic the beatified grail of Bollywood romance. It took each fibre of my mortal being to past its 3 hours, but for the involvement of cinema past (and astatine the hazard of being ceremonially excommunicated and lynched by filmy loyalists), I’ll effort to support things short, civilised, and lone moderately heretical.

Shah Rukh Khan’s crook arsenic the patron saint of subtle reddish flags has agelong been celebrated arsenic the archetypal romanticist hero. He radiates a boyish charm that is supposedly meant to soften his smug expat bro energy. Kajol meanwhile, seems to embody the docile virtues expected of “good Indian women” successful diaspora stories. Simran’s abrupt gullibility is truthful ridiculous due to the fact that she falls successful emotion the 2nd this man-child says “sorry” for joking astir assaulting her portion she’s unconscious. 

If Raj’s reverent heart-eyes astatine the pious entity of his affections praying successful a Swiss religion weren’t already grating, his daytime fantasies of carrying his recently sanctified bride successful a reddish lehenga down a religion aisle during the later, Tujhe Dekha Toh sequence, made that subtext embarrassingly loud. His persistent ‘courtship’ relies connected a bid of humiliating flirtations followed by an apology arsenic a reset button. This conceited template for romanticist licence is 1 that Indian cinema seems to person absorbed and emulated for years to come. From my constricted understanding, earlier surface romances indulged successful unabashed melodrama. Yet portion DDLJ proclaimed itself immoderate benignant of extremist vanguard of “modern love,” it inactive reinforced the aforesaid gendered dynamics of obedience done glossy non-resident privilege.

Then we deed India, wherever seemingly escaping arranged-marriage purgatory is disconnected the array due to the fact that Raj insists connected Bauji’s “permission.” Here, the lyrics of “Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna” and the Karva Chauth series lone further sanctify pistillate sacrifice arsenic devotional instinct. And the climactic slapstick smackdown rather virtually stages Simran arsenic the prize to beryllium released lone aft the patriarch concedes ownership. The movie attempts astatine challenging this internalised misogyny done performative nods and juxtapositions with the Western thought of modernity, but it’s yet devoid of immoderate meaningful structural critique.

Three hours of Shah Rukh’s unrelenting nonsense, seemed to person yet fried mediocre Amrish Puri’s brains on with my own. Somehow astatine the extremity of it all, I’m expected to rejoice implicit Simran escaping a gun-slinging Punjabi launda, lone to onshore successful the arms of a marginally little intolerable, entitled London brat.

There are immoderate flickers of half-baked observations connected first-generation migrant disillusionment that beryllium astir successful spite of the romance. But the hypocrisy of DDLJ is that its flimsy virtuousness signalling towards progressiveness yet bends the genu to the precise authorization it pretends to defy. 

People support this movie arsenic a “product of its time.” Absolutely not. “Its time” was 1995, not the Stone Age. Fond nostalgia and “good‑ol’ fashioned fun” can’t shield this from scrutiny. For the beingness of me, I cannot fathom what makes this movie truthful beloved. Maybe my procreation volition conscionable never get it. Or possibly I’m conscionable excessively sane. Call maine a snobbish, fun-sucking hater if you must, but assessing this movie done a modern lens lone exposes its vaunted ‘legacy’ being venerated for achieving little than the bare minimum.

So, ja DDLJ ja. I anticipation we never cross paths again. Happy 30th, I guess.