Dev (Abhay Deol) is the son of a rich industrialist. He is packed off to London by his strict father who senses his growing fondness with Paro (Mahi), a girl from a less affluent family than theirs. When Dev comes back from London now as a grown up youth, his love for his childhood sweetheart is in fact much multiplied. But he is not allowed to marry her because of differences in cast and status. While Dev is sent to Delhi, Paro is married off to a rich but aged widower who has kids. Not one to take on responsibilities for his acts Dev digs deep into drugs and alcohol for salvation. He stays away from home but his finances still come from a doting father.
An escapist instinct and a massive ego leads him into an aimless search for lost love that pushes him further into an abyss of darkness and hopelessness soaked in self pity. During these times he meets a prostitute Chanda (Kalki). What follows next in Dev’s journey towards self destruction forms the rest of the plot!
Aiming it to be a modern day version of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic novel Devdas Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D has ended up being not everyone’s cup of entertainment. With many things more appalling than appealing, Dev D may evoke irritation and bad reaction from fans of the earlier versions and the novel. Though Kashyap gets it right by making his three principal characters (of Dev, Paro and Chanda) stronger and belonging to today’s generation, the overuse of abusive language, drugs, alcohol and sex makes him somewhere lose the point he is trying to convey. It goes onto become much darker than it should have been. Kashyap has tried to play around with his narrative style by incorporating 18 songs (some very short). But some coming one after another in succession make you really bored. He drops certain subtle laugh out moments visually and through the dialogue but they are not sufficient to keep engaged. Also, the over two and a half hour running time feels far too long than it actually should. The abrupt end may leave many perplexed.
The film somehow is salvaged to a large extent by the two leading ladies Mahi Gill and Kalki. Mahi not only looks gorgeous but is an extremely natural bringing out her rawness of her character amazingly well. Kalki is a find. She brilliantly brings out the duality of her character - her childlike innocence and her no regrets attitude about the way she lives her life. Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Chunni the brash and loud pimp succeeds is bringing out a few laughs.
Amit Trivedi’s music is good at places with Emotional Atyaachaar being already a hit. Amongst the many songs, the rock version of Emotional Atyaachaar has been superbly picturised. The camerawork by Rajiv Ravi is absolutely top class, especially when it captures the neon lit by lanes of Delhi’s Paharganj. The sound design too is good.
Source : realbollywood.com
