Kabir Singh Review (No Spoilers): Second Draft, Better Than the First

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It’s 11pm on a work night, but I am so excited about this movie that I just have to write the review right now!

When I am writing something, the first draft is usually really really good. So good that I can’t think of how to improve it, so I just post it and forget it and move on. But then I get the chance to redo it, I decide to do a rerun of an old review and I go back and take pieces out and add other pieces and change it just a little bit, and it is better. I couldn’t make it better on that first go round, because I hadn’t had those new thoughts yet, I hadn’t learned new things, and (most of all) I hadn’t talked it over with all of you in the comments. But the second draft, after I had grown into a different person and had other people help me think new thoughts, it’s all just a little bit better. And that’s what happened here. Arjun Reddy is a Great Movie, of the kind that will be on the list of “important Telugu films of the 21st century” for eternity. But Kabir Singh is just a little bit better.

Image result for kabir singh poster

Arjun Reddy was Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s first movie. And he had a lot of great ideas and beautiful visuals, and his brother was producing it and his cast was a bunch of newcomers grateful for the work so he could put in all those great ideas and beautiful visuals and no one would raise their hand and say “yeah, but is that the best thing for the film as a whole?” This time around, he got feedback, he got collaboration from talented experienced artists, and we lost a few moments of beauty, but we gained a much better film.

I’ll give you a simple example. In the original, there is a moment when Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” plays and we are told it is the favorite record of a certain character. It’s a truly lovely little 2 minutes of art, this gorgeous song playing over perfect visuals, one of those moments of film that will always stick with me. But the thing is, that song isn’t quite right for the character who was supposed to love it. It is a song that a young western influenced artist like Sandeep Reddy Vanga would love, but it isn’t a song that this particular character would love.

In this movie, they play “What a Wonderful World” very lightly on the soundtrack in the background, just instrumental, a whiff of a memory for those who know the original film, and a pleasant little nod and mood builder for those who just know the song. And then they play within the movie a favorite record of the character, and it is perfect. Not perfect for a beautiful moment of filmed art (it even sounds a little scratchy and fuzzy like an old record would), but perfect for that exact character to have loved, and perfect to be played at that exact moment in time. The indulgence of the director’s vision is controlled and instead the film is most important, more important than him.

There are so many small changes like that, setting one sequence in a hill station instead of in Europe, adding a section at the boy’s hostel, little things that help to make the logic of the film work just slightly better. And cutting soooooooooo many “humorous” speeches from the hero’s friend, speeches which were funny and the original audience loved quoting them, but on second thought they just slow down the film and take the audience out of it. Second draft things, fixing problems you don’t see until someone else points them out.

The biggest improvement is the casting. In the original, Vijay Deverankonda was brilliant. But Shahid is just a little bit better. He takes the little touches and mannerisms that Vijay used, and improves them. It’s the same performance and the same character, but with Shahid I was never bored. I knew that every gesture, every line delivery, every facial expression was going to bring me that little something extra. With Vijay, good though he was, by the time we entered the third hour I was just tired of seeing the same old thing over and over again, I started checking my watch during his scenes. With Shahid, it wasn’t the same old thing, not exactly. That kind of precision in a performance, the effort and ability to create so much subtle differentiation scene to scene, that is something that comes with years and years of experience, not just talent.

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thank you Internet! Vijay on the left, Shahid on the right. They are both sitting with sunglasses shaking a bottle. But Shahid is doing it in a way I have never seen someone shake a bottle before or sit or look. Notice, for instance, his eyes aren’t squinting. Vijay is squinting hard, like “I’m really SHAKING this bottle!” But Shahid is playing someone who has lost the ability to be aware of himself so complete that he is calmly looking to one side while shaking the bottle slightly with one hand. And Shahid’s shirt is light and knit, like you would wear if you only cared about comfort and ease, no buttons to button. His hair looks authentically rumpled, while Vijay’s clearly has a touch of mousse. It’s the same shot, but the version on the right is every so slightly better. Heck, notice how you can see extras in the background on the right? The awareness of an audience for this scene is important, this time around they had extras and they kept them slightly in focus the whole time instead of fudging it.

Shahid is almost 10 years older than Vijay and, more than that, has been acting for the past 16 years. He has worked with some of the greatest directors in Hindi cinema, in a whole variety of roles, and he has learned and grown over that time. I’ve seen his early stuff, and it wasn’t great, he was mimicing other more popular actors, he was running away from the true emotion of the characters. But since Kaminey in 2009, I have had him on my mental list as one of the greatest actors (not stars, but actors) in Hindi cinema. And he has never disappointed me. And in this role, not only does he not disappoint, he exceeds my expectations.

The other big improvement is the heroine. Kiara Advani, like Shahid versus Vijay, is just better than Shalini Pandey. She is more experienced on camera and as an actress, she can convey unspoken emotions with far more skill. But it’s not just that. Some slight changes of editing, of actor direction, of dialogue, and suddenly the “Preeti” character is not some enigma we have to guess at, but a living breathing person we can understand and sympathize with. In the original, it was the story of a man who fell in love. In this, it is the story of two people who are in love.

Image result for kabir singh kiara advani

The songs, the sets, the costumes, it is all just that hair’s breadth better. And all in service of bringing out the story, the very original story and the message that is in both movies. It’s not about kissing and sex and drugs, it’s about what those all represent, the messy reality of young people as people, not as toys that society can move around and force to fit within tidy boxes. Our hero is angry, yes. But he isn’t angry at himself, or his girlfriend, he is angry at the world which wants him to stop fighting, to give up, to adjust and accept what he knows to be wrong. In the original version, it became all about the romance of it, the shock factor, even the dirty jokes. In this version, that raw anger leaps off the screen and into the theater to the point that it is now almost midnight, two hours after I finished watching the movie, and I still don’t feel like sleeping

26 thoughts on “Kabir Singh Review (No Spoilers): Second Draft, Better Than the First”

  1. I still haven’t seen Arjun Reddy yet for some reason but I’ve been meaning to for a while especially after I saw the trailer for Kabir Singh which got my attention. I still found your viewpoints very interesting regardless.

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  2. I just read your review and went to read reviews of other newly released movies elsewhere. Namrata Joshi of The Hindu has this to say -” Having watched and balked at Arjun Reddy for its celebration of a misogynistic, infantile bully of a hero, Kabir Singh felt like a doubly suffocating experience.” (https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/kabir-singh-movie-review-this-arjun-reddy-remake-is-no-film-for-woman/article28093925.ece) As a male who watched Arjun Reddy and did not react as Namrata did, does what she says resonate with you? On the same lines this article by Subha Rao (https://www.filmcompanion.in/selvaraghavans-films-through-the-eyes-of-a-woman-subha/) made me realise how my response to the movies she mentions about is completely different from hers. I need to process this further.

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    • I’m a woman, not a man. There have been movies that I could not enjoy as a woman, I just recently did a look back at Bachne Ae Haseeno which has far far more problems than this film. I am a little disturbed by the trend of film criticism in general which seems to take the most superficial simple interpretation of a movie, take scenes out of context, argue that characters “should” be a certain way, instead of looking at the film as a whole. It is easy to do that and it gets you a lot of views online, but it isn’t necessarily the best way to review a film. For instance, notice how you did not know whether I was a woman or a man when you read this review? That’s because I was talking about the film itself, not reactions to the film.

      Here is a post where I go into greater depth on what good criticism looks like: https://dontcallitbollywood.com/2017/11/04/feminism-versus-feminist-film-criticism/

      It’s good for people to consider and respect the opinions of others about movies, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop thinking for yourself. If you liked the film and can articulate why you liked it, and those reasons are not bad reasons (“I liked seeing naked women” would be a bad reason, for instance), than you can hold on to those reasons and still accept that there might be other things that are bad about the film.

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  3. I’m really conflicted about watching this movie…the trailer gave me the impression that this is about an asshole misogynistic alcoholic who we will be redeemed…and I just hate those movies where we are manipulated into liking jerks….have I got the wrong impression? You seem to love the movie…what am I missing?

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    • Go into the movie with an open mind. That’s the point. You see a guy who is alcoholic and rude and you think “jerk”. But the film is challenging you to get past that, to see him as a real person. And yes, he is rude and mean, but that does NOT make him misogynistic. The only people he respects at his job are the nurses. He treats all his friends, male and female, the same way. He enjoys spending time with his grandmother. It is the “good” people around him that are misogynistic, the ones who can’t believe he could have a mutually respectful and loving relationship with a woman because women only want marriage and not sex. And the double standard that treating women as people, the same as anyone else, is misogynistic because they should be treated like precious flowers.

      And he isn’t redeemed, exactly. The narrative punishes him for his behavior in multiple ways, and only after he changes himself and accepts his responsibilities is he allowed to move on. It’s not the usual “oh he is so broken let’s forgive everything” kind of story.

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        • They are bad at watching movies and wrong. You can tell them that for me 🙂

          On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 9:33 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Angie, I feel similarly to the women you are talking about and I don’t think I’m bad at watching movies nor do I think I am wrong, but I always appreciate Margaret’s input! 🙂

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  4. I haven’t seen Kabir Singh yet, but I will say that I think Arjun Reddy was a misogynistic and DEEPLY flawed character

    SPOILERS FOR ARJUB REDDY whose own characters flaws cost him everything he wanted and loved most (Preeti and medicine); and I think, in the end, that we are meant to understand that his willingness to raise her child as his own is the measure of how far he has come in fixing himself (this is the dude who warned everyone off of even touching her etc etc, but now he finally realizes that he loves her enough to accept her child by another man). I think that’s an unusually subtle moment in an otherwise fairly unsubtle film though so I can see how it looks like Arjun hasn’t changed at all. But I don’t think that the movie is necessarily glorifying misogyny (that’s on how the audience interprets the film!) any more than “Haider” letting its title character live was glorifying terrorism? *shrugs* I didn’t LOVE AR but it was a powerful movie and a powerful performance and it seems like KS is the same. And the lens through which we see it (is he still a jerk who gets an underserved happy ending or a flawed protagonist (not a hero!) who is granted a moment of redemptive grace by the woman he loves?) is entirely our own.

    Also some of the “Indian audiences will be unduly influenced by the misogyny” talk that I’ve seen in various reviews and comments makes me uncomfortable because it smacks of “brown people aren’t as sophisticated an audience and will be unable to differentiate between flawed protagonist and lovable hero.” Gimme a break! (I’m half Indian, and my Indian family is plenty sophisticated about movies.)

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    • Thank you, such an interesting comment! The ending of Kabir Singh is the same as Arjun Reddy and, for me, I interpreted it the same way. Our “hero” has gone through a lot of darkness and finally come out the other end to accept his responsibilities in his career, in his relationship. He has learned that it doesn’t matter if he does what he believes is right (always treating his patients to the best of his abilities, being faithful and devoted to his girlfriend), if the other party doesn’t agree (the hospital doesn’t want him drinking and treating so many patients, his girlfriend wanted something different from him).

      I saw the film similar to you, in that we aren’t supposed to think what the hero is doing is “right”, the film is merely showing what is happening and not necessarily endorsing his actions. And I know what you mean about the “Indian audience” commentary. I don’t feel as strongly about it in this case, because the film is so extreme in the actions shown, and he does have a happy ending. But there are so many other movies where I have heard similar arguments, and it bothers me.

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  6. I have not seen either of these movies but read a bunch of reviews and watched a few scenes here and there. Based on those things only, I feel like you might be missing some of the social context which makes this character unacceptable to female reviewers from India. It might be good to take a step back and think about how your own white feminism might be minimising the genuine concerns of people facing this problem in their day to day lives by assuming that they don’t know how to watch movies, or that they don’t understand the difference between feminism and feminist criticism.

    There are plenty of wannabe Arjun Reddys and Kabir Singhs hanging around in colleges in India, especially in the smaller towns. Just watching the college scenes in the trailer makes me flashback to my own college days 20 years ago and fills me with a combination of rage and dread. Finding out that someone got beaten up because he spoke to you without the permission of the guy who claims you as “his” might seem romantic at 18, but it definitely raises multiple red flags now as an almost 40 year old. I came from a fairly progressive family and was raised to be a strong, independent women. That was definitely not the case for many of my friends growing up. I have seen plenty of stories like the one in this story and trust me, they never end up well. A guy who thinks he owns you because you made eye contact and smiled at him (or even initiated sex) is never going to grow out of it. I think a lot of pushback from Indian reviewers is coming from the fact that we are slowly seeing young women become aware that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and they fear that a “grand romance” like this might easily cause things to backslide. For you, this might be a complex character study but for them it hits way too close to home. I can guarantee you that any Indian woman who went to University has dealt with this kind of guy and do not find him romantic. They don’t want a new generation of Kabir Singhs for their daughters to deal with.

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    • So agree with your thought process on this. Having dealt with multiple Kabir Singh types during school and college, I thought that trope was done and dusted. Instead, we have this movie again reviving bad memories and encouraging cheap dudes.

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      • Me too… a man like Arjun would only (possibly) change in his possessivenes and taking for granted if he fells in love with a woman strong enough to put limits to his authoritarian behaviour towards her or to leave him. It is, imo, an unhealthy kind of love that we get to see in Arjun Reddy…from both sides.

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          • Yes! Either you will come back agreeing with me, or unhappy with me, we shall see!

            On Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 1:31 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  7. Ahhhh My movie-going partner had to cancel tonight and I was waffling back and forth on whether to go anyway (just because this week, like the last one, is going to be super busy). And then there are all the reviews that are calling this film a glorification of a misogynist, so I figured maybe I wouldn’t bother.
    But then you, whom I know to be very ready to call out misogyny when you see it, say otherwise, and left a good review to boot and now I’m conflicted again!

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    • I always ere on the side of “see it and decide for yourself” as you know. But on the other hand, it is an almost 3 hour film. So it’s up to you!

      On Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 11:05 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • It is a movie about love, but not a romance. It is a movie about a man who unapologetically flaunts his questionable character without seriously repercussions from his sourroundings (baring one). It is a movie about a glaring social flaw and about a girl/woman who only starts to get empowered when she has a responsibility she doesn’t deny. For me, it was like a study but in no way a glorification of anything or anybody. However, that is always in the eye of the beholder.

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  8. Pingback: Kabir Singh Review (No Spoilers): Second Draft, Better Than the First 21 – shouryagivesbiography

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