Review: Momin Saqib rescues 'Daghabaaz Dil' from falling flat

Wajahat Rauf’s fifth feature film is incredibly hammy with an antihero to root for

KARACHI:

In the spirit of Eid entertainment, Wajahat Rauf’s Daghabaaz Dil taps into the festivity with a concoction of family drama and a dash of the supernatural. The film portrays the complex love dynamics within a Pakistani family, focusing on a bride, Zoya (Mehwish Hayat), who discovers her matrimonial fate is already sealed with her cousin Faris (Ali Rehman) amidst their long-feuding families.

The premise itself, while intriguing, promises more chaos than the film actually delivers. Daghabaaz Dil, co-written by Rauf and Mohsin Ali, keeps its narrative tethered when it could have been more imaginative, especially with a love-stricken jinn adding a fantastical twist.

For an Eid film, a genre Rauf has been devoted to in his past two ventures as well, the plot is formulaic masala. The quintessential spritz of melodrama, romance, comedy and action, as usual, does not meld the various genre elements together. Instead, the film unfolds with a multi-conflict storyline where events are a succession of a half-baked diegesis, characters are one-dimensional and emotions are meant less to be felt than to move the plot forward.

Beo Rana Zafar plays the grandmother with one simple desire: to see her family share a loving bond - she is also the mastermind behind romantic coupling. Babar Ali and Saleem Sheikh play Faris and Zoya’s fathers respectively, two brothers whose greed for the family property is only outdone by their sister who also wants her daughter wed to Faris.

‘Phuppo aur unki Beti’

The cliched ‘conniving Phuppo and her daughter’ trope is used generously to little comic effect which makes the underlying misogyny of the stereotype all the more glaring. So poorly written are both the characters that one can easily walk out of the cinema hall without remembering their names.

A film’s politics is not always indicative of its artistic merit. Especially in the case of Pakistani mainstream cinema, the awareness of how public sentiments toward stereotypes around gender, race, caste and creed are changing is slow to kick in. This is why it is particularly fascinating to note how Rauf’s venture stars a girlboss heroine, whose past passion for cricket is merely cosmetic embellishment. Zoya, unlike the conniving Phuppo ki Beti has more to her than wanting a man, let alone needing one. Yet, she smiles to herself in secret when Faris defends her honour despite bashing his chivalry with a long reminder of her independence and personhood.

Ken vs Jinn

(Spoiler alert)

Since Geet from Jab We Met is decidedly overdone by now, Mehwish’s character has little to recommend her, her quirky yet strong-willed persona inspiring little charm. Even then, her romantic interest in Faris is hard to understand. Mehwish is certainly charming in her own right; Ali Rehman is just Ken. It is perhaps unfair to comment more on his acting, considering how little he was given to work with. Playing a lovestruck fool is a staple of Bollywood and for most of us who have grown up watching Shah Rukh Khan snatch bride after bride, one would think some of that charm would have rubbed off on us. Woe are we, however, as Faris is one boring hero aside from occasional bons mots.

The antihero, on the other hand, is a jinn named Moon, a role that Momin Saqib plays with a punch. Much of the enjoyable rhythm after the film’s interval is carried by Momin who plunges Faris, Zoya and the Phuppo ki Beti into a messy love cube. As far as the supernatural in Pakistani cinema goes, Rauf’s jinn has little expectations to meet. Where Faris is a goody-two-shoes bordering lunatic for having a jinn BFF, Moon himself is both cheeky and caddish and worth more screentime than what is allotted to him.

Overall, his portrayal is lacking in imagination, the boundary between the human and the magical elements is frequently left unclear. Moon’s humanity could have set the stage for more romantic explorations had his character not been so obviously relegated to comic relief from the outset.

A sonic mistake

On the technical front, Daghabaaz Dil does what a mainstream commercial film must do - but not without some faults. The sound mixing leaves a lot to be desired for a film gracing the big screen on Eid; it may require specialised knowledge to understand the absence of 5.1 mixing in sound but anyone with a little bit of cinemagoing experience can feel it. The cinematography by Asrad Khan captures the vividness of a grand Pakistani wedding and the editing keeps the narrative flowing, although some redundant establishing shots of the city could have been left out.

To cinemagoers blocking roughly two hours of their day, the messiness of Daghabaaz Dil is not a bad investment per se. If anything, the film’s many faults are disguised by its fast pace, a delight for attention spans ravaged by the ubiquity of social media and short-form content. Marking Rauf’s fifth film with his wife Shazia Wajahat serving as a producer, one can trust the duo to know the kind of family drama that glues the audience to their seats. However, in mapping the pulse of an audience on the big screen, many mainstream directors presume they must cater to preset demands rather than create new markets and stories. Ultimately, that fallacy continues to plague this Eid wedding film.

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