Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani: Karan Johar’s most personal, subversive film is here

Karan Johar, the filmmaker, is a thriving site of contradictions. His films uphold conventions with the prudishness of a stickler. But they also hide pockets of radicalism. In them, a widowed man reconnects with his college friend, falls in love and they eventually marry on his daughter’s approval; two married people cheat on their respective spouses and seek companionship in each other. A Muslim man and a Hindu woman fall in love and decide to be together; a poetess lives with a younger man and the arrangement between them is that of sexual gratification. Having said that, Johar’s adherence to tradition has been so stringent that it shaped his narratives if not altered them, resulting in reiterating more conventions.

An easier example would be the widowed man who fell in love with his college friend only when she grew her hair and became more feminine. The lasting image of their togetherness is dipped in such (Hindi film) familiarity that it is easy to forget the atypical way they undertook to be together. But a more complex way of looking at this is acknowledging Johar’s commitment to customs which is so resolute that every time he pushes his characters to defy, he punishes them for it (and by extension himself). For instance, even when he charts out togetherness for the transgressive couple who betrayed their partners, he holds it out till they have spent enough years in solitude and despair. Or, consider his other film when an inter-community marriage results in a tragedy like it was designed for the protagonists to earn their defiance if not atone for it.

More specifically take that story where a girl’s refusal to reciprocate a boy’s love (she considered him a friend– a disobedience if there ever was) concludes with her death. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016) reveals Johar’s inclination for the modern (take the premise for instance) and his bondage to tradition (take the ending for instance) with the broadest of strokes, making it his most personal work. That is until his latest outing, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani — an unfairly fun film that bursts at the seams with noise and energy, halting not for a moment yet unfolding with the wisdom of a filmmaker who looks in the eye of his own beliefs.

The lines have never been more apparent. Rocky Randhawa (Ranveer Singh) is a moneyed Delhi boy. He is the sole male heir to an expansive sweets business, started by his grandmother and named after her: Dhanalakshmi. His family comprises his abrasive father (Aamir Bashir), his timid mother (Kshitee Jog), his under-confident elder sister (Anjali Anand), and his grandparents (Jaya Bachchan and Dharmendra). On the other end is Rani Chatterjee (Alia Bhatt), a fearless political journalist. Her family consists of an English Literature professor mother (Churni Ganguly), a kathak dancer father (Tota Roy Chowdhury) and her grandmother Jamini (Shabana Azmi).

Because it is a film by Johar, every difference is magnified. Thus, while Rocky wears Gucci and Versace like his second skin and holds protein shake like an extension of his arm, Rani dons gorgeous cotton saris to newsrooms like it is Durga Puja all year round. The contrast extends beyond the aesthetics. The Randhawa family is run by Dhanalakshmi, who like many matriarchs is an efficient gatekeeper of patriarchy. Her poet husband disappointed her in youth and then fell down a flight of stairs, lost memory and disappointed himself. She remained unfazed, investing all her effort instead in bringing up her son like herself - conservative, unfeeling with a clear-eyed focus on making money. He is ironically named Tijori. The women in the household are given neither voice nor respect. On the other hand, the Chatterjees are liberals with a capital L. Women are indispensable in their presence. And because it is a film by Johar, the narrative is set in a sort of hyperreality where Rocky lives in a White House replica and Rani lives in a house that should have ideally been in Santiniketan. The walls are adorned with paintings on all sides, the highlight being the portrait of a downcast Rabindranath Tagore.

Rocky and Rani meet early. The reason is not contrived. His grandfather Kaval and her grandmother Jamini had met years back at a poet’s gathering in Shillong. They had spent a week together but it was enough to know they were each other’s soulmates. Both were married at that time. This comes out in the open when the wheelchair-addled old man mistakes someone else for Jamini and the doctor advises the family to find the connection. One old photograph and a Google search later, revelation strikes. Rocky turns up at Rani’s newsroom and soon enough the elders meet in secret and so do they.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, unlike any other film directed by Johar, brandishes itself as a love story. It is in the name. It is in the conflicts. Rocky and Rani have nothing in common. There is a difference in culture (he struggles with English - at one point he decorates a room and refers to it as the ‘garden of the galaxy’, when she asks her where is West Bengal he retorts “In the West but obvio [sic]”; she has studied at Columbia University). If probed deeper even their political inclinations would differ. When he finds her on the Internet for the first time, Rocky refers to Rani as the journalist who gives bad news on TV. But where has love ever seen reason? Thus, through lip-sync songs, stunning visuals and the absolute crackling chemistry of the leads, Rocky and Rani fall in love.

Johar here does not miss a beat. The Punjabis never looked more Punjabi, and Bengalis haven’t been more Bengali (when Rocky uses a Hindi cuss word, Rani’s mother shudders saying, “Oh the misogyny!”). Bhatt is introduced to a Bengali rap-like song that has “Ami Rani” (“I am Rani”) as the refrain. The jokes land and the colours enliven the aesthetic. He pays homage to Yash Chopra (chiffon saris; there is also a tribute of sorts to the iconic Veer-Zaara scene), Zoya Akhtar (there is a nice nod to the famous cake scene from Dil Dhadakne Do), and himself. The characters, all polarised, work so does the ensemble (Dharmendra’s presence feels oddly affecting). Singh is written with plenty of buffoonery and the actor soars as Rocky, striking the delicate balance between naivete and foolery. This is not the first time he plays a Delhi boy but he also does it better than most. There is something about him and Bhatt together in one frame. It feels effortless and lived-in. They make commercials better and the film is no exception.

But again, this is a love story in a Karan Johar world. If his films come across as case studies in being conservative, they also underscore the reading that love, when transgressive is punished and when not, serves as a means to an end. It brings people together more than just the lovers. Because, also in his world, as Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) evidenced, love never trumps tradition because tradition is peddled as love. In Rocky Aur Rani too, after the fun and games end, familiar questions arise. It matters not that they live in 2023, they need the approval of their parents. To overcome the cultural and ideological differences, Rocky decides to live with Rani’s family for three months and so does she.

The swap makes for comedic gold (Singh mistaking Tagore as the grandfather is genius) but there is something else the director is trying to do here. By adhering to orthodoxy (again), Johar chooses to question it for the first time. The disparate designs of the households become more than just a narrative gimmick. When Rocky arrives at Rani’s house, he expects coffee at the bedside, the way he is used to. He looks away in discomfort when her mother buys bras. When Rani’s father dances, he is visibly frightened, “unko Madhuri chadh gayi hain (he is possessed)," he famously says. The director tries taking a centrist stand (through Rocky’s character he calls out the snobbery of Rani’s “modern” parents) but for the most part, his stance is clear. It is Rocky and his family, festering in outdated conservatism, who are due for change. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is Karan Johar’s Mohabbatein as he reserves the loudest hat tip for Aditya Chopra.

Written by Ishita Moitra, Shashank Khaitan and Sumit Roy, the film includes lines that hark back directly to Chopra’s 2000 film. Jaya Bachchan, in a smart touch, is modelled on two of Amitabh’s characters. One is from K3G (she reprises his “keh diya na bas keh diya” line) but in ethos and worldview, she is the female counterpart of Narayan Shankar. Singh and Bhatt alternate as Raj Aryan as they use love as the modernist force for the reformation of an older world, which in Johar’s films is represented as one distinct unit: family. It took him more than two decades but he finally followed up his “It's all about loving your parents” with a more vital question: “What if your parents are not worth loving?”

This shift in slant frees him, manifesting in sudden joys. For one, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani redoes several old songs, using them to score pivotal moments in the film. There is a candour with which they are deployed, underlining Johar’s changed relationship with reverence. But more crucially, his latest film is a fascinating example of the filmmaker finally reckoning with the patriarchal undertones of tradition. Questions of gender and representation writ large in his oeuvre but they also lean on regressive caricatures. This time around, however, he views them not as he was trained to see but as he does see them. In his hands, the sight of a male dancer throbs with grace (Tota Roy Chowdhury really acing it), culminating in a dance-off that is as disruptive as it is fun; in his world the male character recognises his entitlement and freely confesses in a monologue that he knew no better. The moment feels out of place but also poignant because it becomes a means for Johar, a male director, to acknowledge his blindspots and Singh, a male actor, to admit his gendered follies.

It is always touching to witness a filmmaker wanting to adapt themselves with time. It is moving to see them revisit their legacy not just for self-referencing but also for introspection. The result is personal even when not bitingly subversive. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, the seventh feature by Johar, is that film in his filmography where he is finally easier on the characters and himself, also most accepting of love. He evokes his beliefs to critique, if not admonish, them. He looks ahead by looking back but also looks back because he really, truly wants to look ahead.