Spoilers ahead…
It’s fun to see an Anurag Kashyap movie where the angst is almost entirely external, where the characters are basically gears that keep the screenplay machine in motion.
There’s a melancholic bit of humour at the beginning of Dobaaraa, directed by Anurag Kashyap and based on the 2018 Spanish film Mirage. A kid is cycling down the street, and on the soundtrack, we hear this song from Golmaal: “Aane wala pal jaane wala hai / ho sake to isme zindagi bita do / pal jo yeh jaane wala hai.” Translation: “The present moment is all we have. It’s going to disappear soon, so live in the moment.” The film is about living in the moment that the title suggests: when the clock shows 2 hours, 12 minutes. As in: do baarah. As we will soon discover, the present moment is all that that kid has. And “do baarah” is the moment Antara’s life hinges on. Taapsee Pannu plays Antara, and one of the meanings of that name, that word, is “something in the middle”. That’s where Antara finds herself for most of the movie: caught in the middle of alternate timelines.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/hindi/movie/review/dobaaraa/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
KS
August 19, 2022
Anurag Kashyap spoke so eloquently and honestly in the interview about being rooted and original. So it is a bit disappointing to learn that after all his big talk, this movie too is a remake of some European movie. Is there such a paucity of original stories here that even big directors and stars just take a foreign (or southern) movie, do some patti-tinkering to superficially lend it some local flavor (while the subtext and underlying worldview remain the same, even if they make less sense in our context), and pass it off here? Indha pozhappukku they might as well unleash all their creativity into good dubbing (like the Tamil dubs of Hong Kong action movies that used to come on TV, with hilarious lines).
I can understand young directors trying out remakes as an opportunity to hone their craft while playing it safe, but when seasoned directors do it too, it makes me lose a tiny bit of respect for them (even if I enjoy the movie, which is likely given the source materials). And all their grandstanding about creativity tends to be taken with a pinch of salt. Vai mattum illa na ivangala naai thookitu poidum.
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Srinivas R
August 19, 2022
@KS – Anurag did say he had 9 scripts ready but only one had a taker. When Tapsee approached him with this, he thought might as take up that comes my way, as no one wants to make what I want to make.
He was not grandstanding about creativity at all, tbh. He was saying how Bollywood takes an original script created here and force fits it into a known template.
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KS
August 19, 2022
@Srinivas R: But thats just what they all say to save face. Claim they have all sorts of pathbreaking ideas and original scripts (sounds like the “I have a real girlfriend, but she goes to a different school, or Canada” trope), but blame the producers, the stars, the business, the audience, the “system” or whoever, when asked to explain the mediocrity of their actual output. As I mentioned, thats understandable in the case of young directors, who will be forced to make compromises so as to stay in the game.
But if veterans also use this excuse, then whats the point of regarding them as veterans or buying into their big talk? A remake is the height of laziness and creative bankruptcy. I’d be more forgiving if their original movies turn out shabby, than if they do even a competent job at a remake.
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Caesium
August 19, 2022
BR: “And the OCD part of me kept wishing the movie had been 2 hours and 12 minutes long, instead of 2:15.”
It took me a sec to get the connect.
Deivame – Neenga engayo poitinga! 🙏🏽
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tamil thanos
August 19, 2022
@KS, apparently it is not a remake in the traditional sense. He mentioned in the interview that they got the script for the original and adapted it. He had the script ready even before the original got released and that was one of the reasons he was ok doing this.
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shaviswa
August 19, 2022
Nice review BR. I am looking forward to see this one. I like these quirky stories with time travel and what not!! 🙂
And from your review, it looks like an entertaining watch definitely.
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Thupparivaalan
August 20, 2022
I think your anger is kinda misdirected. There’s a lot of people for whom what you say applies to but not Anurag. Man has put his own head and money on the line a lot for movies that he believes in, and this is the first remake he’s done some 10-12 original ventures? And remakes are not a bad thing unless they don’t shot to shot the same way, but yeah even I’m disappointed that AK decided not to divulge from the source material. But then, he could have seen this an opportunity to flex his craft for genre material which isn’t a bad thing.
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shaviswa
August 20, 2022
Looks like the movie has flopped quite badly.
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Madan
August 20, 2022
Not related to Dobara, but in Mumbai, LSC and Raksha Bandha are still running plenty of shows in the second week. Kartikeya 2 has NOT supplanted them and if any film is doing damage to them, it is the Marathi feature Dagdi Chawl 2 which released earlier this week. So why is this if they have both done disastrous business indeed? I am going to wait and watch because this leads me to wonder if reporting on the films is more negative than their actual performance.
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rabie
August 21, 2022
shamshera is out on ott, is there any chance for a review? i know it’s almost impossible considering how busy you are but this is an interesting hindi masala after years and would love to hear your thoughts on it more than anything
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Sai
August 21, 2022
Any chance of reviewing Karthikeya 2 with all buzz around it?
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Rishikesh
August 21, 2022
I feel the makers stretched it way too far. Last week you had the Aamir khan enacting parts with beard and without beard. And this week, there is a Tapsee with make up/ nose ring and without make up/ nose ring. The manner in which the past unfolds makes sense as it has been altered. But I didn’t understand the manner in which it influences the present. Is she getting pulled into the boy’s universe. Is that why she is the wife of XXX as revealed towards the end. I think that’s what the parting scene at the end suggests. Also, there are some questions regarding the past too. Doesn’t anyone in the colony notice Raja Ghosh’s (who could make for a solid Georgekutty) illicit relationship? Also, why doesn’t anyone enquire about his missing wife? An interesting aspect about the film is with boy being witness to a heinous crime and bearing the brunt of it. But the cops decision to not take his point to account seems too unconvincing and shabbily depicted. But moreover, Am I looking for logic in the right film? But Anupama Chopra in her review made an important point about film being inconsistent with its own internal logic and that is what I felt too. Past week, the headline of your LSC review suggested you liked the film until I saw you term it as disappointing in the comment section. Any such consolation here too. If not now, then at least when 2:12 IST? Do:Baara?
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kaizokukeshav
August 21, 2022
Why does this review has so much less related to the movie ? Like nothing revealing about the story or the actors. And much of it is about metaphors and references. It almost seems like a subtle message to readers, that the depth of the review reflects the the depth of the movie 😉
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Cathy
December 29, 2022
Finally watched this on OTT and I quite liked it despite some of the inconsistencies with logic. Mild spoiler – I found it refreshing that one could go back to the past and actually change it. Also Tapsee Pannu’s performance was so much better once the alternate reality started. I found her a little stilted in the initial scenes.
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