Tu Yaa Main Movie Review: Adarsh Gourav and Shanaya Kapoor starrer is more thrills, less feels

Up until I sat down to watch Tu Yaa Main, it didn’t strike me that the title of the latest Adarsh Gourav-Shanaya Kapoor starrer sounds ominous, almost like a threat. A situation where only one or the other remains alive at the end of it all — a dark twist on a story about two young lovebirds trying to survive.

Bejoy Nambiar’s latest film doesn’t have any lofty aspirations on these lines — its ambitions are rather mixed. It is torn between wanting to be a silly, fun creature-thriller and a film laden with metaphors and symbols, about modern love and how social media blurs the lines between truth and illusion. When it tries to do the latter, it struggles and often fails, but it flourishes in the former

Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Shanaya Kapoor and Parul Gulati

Directed by: Bejoy Nambiar

Written by: Abhishek Bandekar

In Tu Yaa Main, Adarsh and Shanaya play Maruti aka Flo Para and Avani aka Miss Vanity, two social media influencers who differ slightly when it comes to fame, but the differences get wider in terms of their social strata. The first half builds entirely on their against-all-odds love story — and it’s not the best decision the writers made. Shanaya’s story has glimpses of genuine emotion, but there is no consistency in the way her scenes progress. We have to be told Avani has grown up feeling alone, because there aren’t enough signs of it in the narrative. Occasionally, there is a dialogue about social media and fame, hinting at us that the film wants to go deeper than it has the ability to. However, there is not enough material here, to earn that kind of emotional depth. 

A tragedy bringing two people closer — that’s a cliche too, but it's a good cliche. On the other hand, the incorporation of a traumatic backstory that poetically links with the present conflict at hand only reminds you that the writers have limited tricks in their bag. The scriptwriting is not strong or emotionally coherent enough, for some of these cliches to work. 

The arc of Flo-Avani’s love story is largely predictable. The two characters are not particularly very interesting on their own either. We know the narrative is sooner or later stepping into the creature-thriller zone any minute. Despite his struggles, Bejoy succeeds in building the anticipation without losing us. Once the film settles in its genre-bound thrills, Tu Yaa Main comes into its own. The film is at its best when it goes for the superficial, unburdening itself from trying to find gravity in conversations between two people who are still growing and delivering precisely what it aims for — cheap thrills. 

What it lacks in its scriptwriting, it more than makes up with its commitment to its territory — and Bejoy doesn’t keep it subtle or understated by any standards. The violence is grotesque, the stakes are high, and the deaths shockingly unexpected. Be it the spooky anticipation built around a phone that might ring any moment, or a puppy that might or might remain alive for very long, the film succeeds in delivering these sensory, momentary pleasures that keep us on the edge. The effect only becomes more impactful with the cinematography and sound design that keep us immersed in that gloomy atmosphere, making us pay attention to every moment that's filled with silence before violence erupts.

Tu Yaa Main also works better when it pokes fun at itself (The Sairat joke had me in splits). There is plenty of room for nervous laughter, because things do reach that level of ludicrousness. There is also potential for humour that goes beyond the text, and reaches a stage of irony — captured in how the two lovers find ways to bicker and fight about their personal issues, despite grappling with a literal life-and-death situation. Also, the title finally makes sense — now, it is less about the doom, and more about the blame-game which the two bull-headed protagonists love to indulge in. While Adarsh commits to the quasi-humorous tone, Shanaya holds her own too. More significantly, she moulds herself effectively to the physicality and histrionics that remain staple to a genre movie like this.

There is a riveting shot in the second half where--the way he edits the sequence-- Bejoy confuses us at a crucial point whether the killer creature is going away from the protagonist or moving towards it. If you find yourself on the edge at this point, it means the film is serving what it promised. Tu Yaa Main did, for me. I am not the biggest cheerleader of Bejoy by any stretch of imagination. Be it Shaitaan, David or Dangey, I’ve always found the filmmaker excessively indulgent in style and at odds with his choice of stories. Tu Yaa Main is possibly the closest he has come in terms of achieving synchronicity between his form and content.