Metro…In Dino Movie Review: A mesmerising musical journey into the mess and mirth of modern love

Love might be a song-and-dance number. At least that’s what Hindi cinema has convinced us over the years. Anurag Basu’s relationship-drama Metro…In Dino feels like somebody has played an old, nostalgic tune on the radio. It’s a true-blue musical where every character will sing out their love and lows and even their worries and woes. It feels like getting into a time capsule, traversing the lengths and breadths of modern life and relationships. It somehow manages to be both classic and contemporary, both mystical and modern. Like a carousel in the middle of a tech park.

Written and directed by: Anurag Basu

Cast: Anupam Kher, Neena Gupta, Pankaj Tripathi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Ali Fazal, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sara Ali Khan and Saswata Chatterjee

Metro…In Dino begins chaotically. There are too many characters, too many relationships and too many dynamics to catch hold of. But the film is relentless. It won’t offer you a hand as it jumps from one couple to another, one problem is left unresolved while the other apparates. It can best be explained as a story of a family and a friend group. One unit is ex-collegemates Akash (Ali Fazal), Shruti (Fatima Sana Shaikh) and Parth (Aditya Roy Kapur), another is mother Shivani (Neena Gupta) and daughters Kajol (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Chumki (Sara Ali Khan). Akash and Shruti are newly married, wanting to grow in different directions. He wants to be a singer and she isn’t sure about getting an abortion. Parth is a free-spirited travel blogger, who has quirky fundas on life but can’t wrap his head around the illogicality of love. He meets Sara’s Chumki, a socially awkward millennial, who can only open up after a drink or two. Chumki is in two minds about everything in life but she seems to have some divine faith in the idea of love, something Parth, a serial philanderer, finds difficult to understand. Konkana’s Kajol and her husband Monty (the amazing Pankaj Tripathi) are a couple navigating a mid-life crisis. Monty secretly gets on a dating app, Kajol does too to spy on him and they funnily match with each other. Neena’s Shivani, mother to both Kajol and Chumki, wishes to live a little. She runs away to Kolkata for a college reunion and there reunites with Parimal (Anupam Kher), the one who could have been.

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With so many characters intertwining and intermingling, Metro…In Dino can feel bloated at instances but Anurag Basu’s assured screenplay makes it soar beautifully, like a hot air balloon. The story of every couple has a glint of life. Each character is a product of their history, housing wanted or unwanted pieces of their parents. Ali’s Aakash represents a generation which wants to chase their dreams but might not be ready to bleed for them. In a poignant scene, Akash is sitting in his room, observing his hand. When his wife Shruti asks him what he is doing, he says that his hands have started resembling his father’s. “Will my life be like his too?” Here is a millennial, afraid of a mundane job, afraid that his dreams are being sacrificed at the altar of domesticity. But he never realises the cost of his impulsive actions. The film, however, does. We are told that Shruti has left a job to be with him. She is suppressing her desires to be a mother so that he can go out and chase his dreams.

Metro.. In Dino gives us a 3D look into people, the length of a life lived, the width of emotions and their inner depths. Aditya’s Parth hides behind a weird sense of humour (which involves a joke about teaching humans how to conduct photosynthesis on themselves and hence solve world hunger). He is an A+B=C kinda guy who considers love as an imaginary number. A perennially confused Chumki somehow, unknowingly, offers him clarity. The most fun is the relationship between Konkona’s Kajol and Pankaj’s Monty. They gorgeously complement each other and there can be a showreel of all the warm, giddy moments Pankaj Tripathi brings up on screen, oftentimes just by his sheer presence.

Metro…In Dino can often be long and winding, too complex, a little too muddled, just like life. Pritam’s music flows in the background beading narratives together. The musical performances seem to have an Old Hollywood charm and seem novel and noteworthy. They seamlessly blend tune with tone and might make you get up and shake a leg with these fictional people on the big screen. In another medium, Metro…In Dino would have been another season of Modern Love but there is some prowess in Anurag Basu’s direction which somehow manages to balance each dynamic. It can get overwhelming at instances but don’t try to decipher it. Love is not an equation, it has no definite answers. It’s exciting when you first experience it and might fade over time but you still keep returning to it. It’s like an old cassette. Love is a love song.