Review of ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’: A passionate drama depicting a bodybuilder's relationship with a transgender woman

Directed by Abhishek Kapoor, the film stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Vaani Kapoor.

In addition to what many of us have already guessed, he stands bare-chested before her, his brawniness on display.

In a film centered around bodily transformation, it's the perfect time for revelation. Ayushmann Khurrana's gym owner and bodybuilder Manu and Vaani Kapoor's Zumba instructor Maanvi make a perfect pair. According to Manu (whatever that means), the sex was even better than normal.

Everything is balle-balle up until Maanvi throws a googly: she is trans. The film is a major update from Hindi films of the past, in which heroines would conceal their pasts minutes before the interval (an old boyfriend, a forced marriage).

Abhishek Kapoor's Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui explores prejudice against assigned gender identities in a thoughtful and usually carefully plotted manner. Through the typical devices used in mainstream Hindi movies - soft-focus glamour, choreographed songs, a loud, quirky family, situational humour - the movie brings out people who have been trapped since birth into boxes that they cannot escape. It is presumably the conceit to use a bankable actor non-trans to play a trans woman.

Simran Sahni came up with the idea for a story about the struggle between orthodoxy and free will. In a movie of this nature, Kapoor and screenwriters Supratik Sen and Tushar Paranjape simplify the complexities of transgender identity to the extent possible. She reacts with disgust and refuses to accept Maanvi according to her own terms. Manu's rage is deflected by Maanvi's calm and dignity as she stands firmly on her decisions.

There are often urgent social messages, but they are rarely preachy. Abhishek Kapoor rolls out the miracles of love deftly and smoothly, except for a section that drags on longer than it should.

Although Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui seeks to normalise Manu's crisis - one of his major fights with Maanvi happens in a children's section of a mall - it also soft-pedals some of the challenges faced by people who want to transition.

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui takes some convenient shortcuts on its way to subversion, unlike Hitesh Kewalya's Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020), in which Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar played a gay couple.

Maanvi's apparent affluence removes one of the biggest obstacles to undergoing numerous complex surgeries for those who are well-off. Even Manu's own family, which appears to be equally wealthy, is too comical for their protests to be taken seriously.

This film risks setting a burdensome expectation by making Maanvi conform to the stereotypes of Hindi film heroines while simultaneously demolishing others. She often actively draws attention to her physical attributes as the camera focuses on her curvy and cleavage-revealing body.

Maanvi is conventionally attractive, but would Manu have chosen her if she was less attractive? The question is never satisfactorily answered in the battle between hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity.

However, there are positives in this aspect of the film. The series is leagues ahead of the insensitively handled MX Player show Pati Patni aur Panga (2020), which played transitioning for laughs, but was very well performed.

Vaani Kapoor is the real surprise in this film as the bulked-up Manu, played by Ayushmann Khurrana. Previously, she hadn't been trusted with such heavy-duty materials, and she delivers on all fronts.

The casting of Mukesh Chhabra ensures that the well-matched leads are surrounded by seasoned actors. In Manu's family, there are two bossy sisters (Tanya Abrol and Sawan Rupowali). Goutam and Gourav Sharma are superb as Goutam and Gourav, Manu's friends. Kanwaljit Singh appears briefly in Maanvi's life, but he has an impactful role.

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