Gehraiyaan Movie Review: A perfect OTT entertainment

Alisha (Deepika Padukone) and Tia (Ananya Panday) are cousins who are catching up with each other after a long time. Alisha is a yoga instructor, whose boyfriend Karan (Dhairya Karwa) is a struggling author. Tia is a rich heiress whose boyfriend Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi) works in real estate. Tia and Zain plan to get married after the completion of Zain's new project. Alisha gets jealous of Tia as they both were leading the same kind of life in Alibaug, till a tragedy tore the family apart. Tia shifted to the US, while Alisha had to shift with her father to Nasik. Years later, they meet in the same ancestral home and memories resurface. Seeing Tia's upscale lifestyle, Alisha feels life has left her behind. She begins to feel suffocated in her relationship with Karan. Zain gets attracted to her and the feeling is mutual. They begin an affair and Zain asks her to leave Karan and have a life with him. But letting go isn't easy, as Alisha doesn't want to hurt either Tia or Karan, who was their childhood friend earlier and is emotionally close to Tia. Also, Zain's company is in a financial mess and the only one who could bail him out is Tia…

Gehraiyaan serves us a world where nothing is what it seems. We all carry the burden of our past and both Alisha and Tia have been affected by the tragedy they witnessed in their childhood. Alisha doesn't have a good relationship with her father (Naseeruddin Shah) and feels guilty about it. She also feels she's going through the same cycle that her parents went through and that further depresses her. Tia is found to be too trusting, too caring, like her mother. While Karan's laidback attitude mirrors that of Alisha's father, who left a flourishing business to start a cheese farm in Nasik. You have to make peace with the past and forgive whatever grief it has given you to break the cycle and make a fresh start. You end up making the same mistakes otherwise...

Forgiveness leads to healing is the film's message and it's left to Naseeruddin Shah to deliver it. He has one long scene but lends it much gravitas, making it stand out effectively. We would certainly have loved more scenes between him and Deepika Padukone, who is the soul of the film. She grows from frame to frame, questioning her choices, ruminating on her existence on every turn, letting overthinking dominate her until she's left an emotional wreck. It's a bravura performance that must have taken a lot from her. Ananya Panday displays a fragility, a vulnerability, that catches you by surprise. Her spark takes longer to ignite but burns with a steady flame when it does. Siddhant Chaturvedi's nervous energy reminds us of a young Shah Rukh Khan from his Baazigar days. His character carries the maximum amount of grey and Siddhant makes it completely believable despite some over the top moments. Newcomer Dhairya Karwa is the good guy with a big heart and is effective in the few scenes he has.

Much has been written about Deepika and Siddhant's bold scenes so we won't add to that. Suffice to say that they do share a crackling chemistry and need to do a romantic film together. The film is shot quite beautifully by Kaushal Shah. The film is technically sound having some fine performances and carrying a hint of mystery as well making it a perfect OTT entertainment.