‘Metro... In Dino' review: Love feels a tad dated in Anurag Basu's multi-city saga

India Today

9 hours ago

Seventeen years after he tugged heartstrings with Life in a... Metro, Anurag Basu and Pritam are back navigating love in the big city, or should we say cities. The stories this time shift between Bengaluru, New Delhi and Calcutta. For Metro... In Dino, Basu adopts a less-seen, interesting narrative device to lure viewers into the world: characters introducing themselves by way of sing-song dialogue delivery.There's Sara Ali Khan's Chumki professing she's confused and unsure; there's Konkona SenSharma's Kajol discussing her insipid marital life; there's Anupam Kher, playing a widower, opening up about losing his loved ones in an accident; there's Ali Fazal's aspiring singer sharing his struggles.advertisementAnd there's Pritam, Papon and Raghav Chaitanya, the travelling troubadours in the backdrop. Offering a peek into a character's current state of mind and establishing their world, the first half breezes past.Standouts here include SenSharma and Pankaj Tripathi as the couple who have fallen into a boring routine, which leads to the husband seeking companionship on a dating app, Linger. The fun begins when she catches on to his infidelity and signs up on the service to lure him into a virtual relationship with a woman named Maya (which translates to illusion, get it?).
It's the track that most lends itself to laughs as both play the game of deception for different purposes—one to seek an escape, the other to impart a lesson. And it enables Basu to look at the fleeting nature of love in the digital age. Tripathi and SenSharma are just the right fit for the odd couple whose repartee keeps things afloat.On the extreme end is the story of Fatima Sana Shaikh and Fazal, a newly married couple whose relationship faces hiccups as one flourishes professionally while the other struggles. Long distance only makes things harder.Their college buddy (Aditya Roy Kapur) uses the rather extreme label of 'toxic love' to summarise their relationship, but this is, in fact, a story which touches on life after settling with your loved one—the hardships, the anxiety, the uncertainty. Confronting it can kill many a relationship, so it's a pity that Basu struggles to fit this sombre take on love amidst the quirk.Lot of that comes via Chumki (Khan) and Parth (Roy Kapur), who have their meet-cute moment after a wasted Chumki ends up in the wrong apartment and finds herself with a travel blogger-theatre actor and coach in Roy Kapur. He's commitment phobic or a 'phattu manchild' in Chumki's words; she's engaged to be married to her colleague.Nothing about the two adds up, but this is the token opposites attract, mysterious love track that has carried many a romcoms. While it starts out with promise, it soon becomes a tedious affair to see the pair dilly-dally, only to have the most contrived what-the-hell endings.advertisementIt's unsurprising then that Metro... In Dino is struck by the curse of the second half. Neena Gupta and Kher, as college sweethearts who reconnect during a reunion, is a plot full of promise but gets turned into a farce with little emotional takeaway. The art of reconciliation and forgiveness becomes an exasperating exercise as characters chase and wait for the epiphany to strike.There's some gyaan on relationship sprinkled in, which reads like an entry out of a Chicken Soup book. 'Shaadi kuch sikhae ya na sikhae, acting karna sikha deti hai (Marriage teaches feigning),' says one character while another talks of the need of adjustment. Another talks of the significance of falling in love with the same person again and again to make it last.Amidst the ensuing half-baked conflict, Basu shows some of his characters live life vicariously albeit fleetingly. But to serve what purpose is the question? In the quest to pack in Pritam's voluminous output, Metro... In Dino turns into a protracted saga whose conclusion is long foreseeable. It doesn't help that logic too has taken a trip, much like many of the characters do. Love certainly has evolved since the first Metro, but in Metro... In Dino, it surprisingly seems dated.advertisementSubscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsTrending Reel