Cocktail 2 Review: Kriti-Shahid-Rashmika-Starrer Brings The Tamest, Dumbest Love Triangle In Recent Times

In Homi Adajania’s Cocktail 2, Shahid Kapoor’s loyal, nice Kunal falls into the snare his long-term partner, Diya (Rashmika Mandanna) sets. It got on her nerves when he joked with their friends that she would never be able to find out if he cheated on her. This lodges in her head and she cannot shake it off, in spite of his reassurances. She gets paranoid about his infidelity which is telegraphed in a distasteful montage designed to be comic. When the couple arrives in Sicily for a vacation, an opportunity presents itself. Diya’s school friend, Ally (Kriti Sanon), a wild spirit, blasts in as a gale through the tameness, force of habit which Diya and Kunal’s relationship had sloughed into. She has no boundaries, which the couple dutifully sticks to.

Ally is gleefully untethered. She revels in the newness of things which she keeps flinging herself into. She talks about distancing herself the minute something, lovers or cities, turn familiar and become obligations. She’s in constant, restless pursuit of the spark that makes life dynamic and free. The allure of such a person is what drives many a film. But you also can’t help wonder how incredibly privileged she is. What’s equally baffling is her miraculous ability to switch jobs in various countries and have her plush lifestyle not affected in the tiniest. She’s as unfazed as barrelling through many countries. She’s unapologetic and thrillingly unbound. The writers position Ally’s swinging playfulness in sharp contrast to an exceedingly proper Diya. The latter hasn’t gotten over her anxiety of Kunal doing something behind her back. She needs to back up her trust in him. For this, she proposes Ally a fun challenge to seduce Kunal and bring proof of his character. She needles her to flirt ragingly and test whether Kunal will give in or recede. A large chunk of the film hence swivels around this test.

There is no consistency or dignity afforded to the women in this film. They are schemers, fleecing innocent, transparent men like Kunal whose only flaw is that their effortless charm might be misread as philandering. Ally has no qualms regarding moving through relationships. But she also warns her friend that she doesn’t take rejection very kindly. The director and his stylist, Anaita Shroff Adajania, try to coast the film on mere vibes, the Italian sun-smeared locations and stunning svelteness. It’s all fluff. This cannot suffice for the utterly sketchy, asinine and pointlessly self-contradictory characters. The film is bent on negating its initial thesis, reverting to conventional ideas around relationships, companionship, what it takes those to endure. Diya worries if Kunal is still actually in love with her or staying with her out of habit.

Cocktail 2 is too fickle to go with anything but conviction in conservatively avowed marriage. It's simply not brave enough. It pedals back to marriage as the decisive be-all, nailing the final point on relationships. Loyalty is the ultimate arbiter of relationships. The film could have mined tension from the things long-term couples start taking for granted. Instead, it is too lazy, whiling away a good hour in the seduction which barely scorches the screen. Adajania seems caught up in maintaining mores, the skewering of which ironically opens the film. Mandanna gets the short shrift. Her lingering glances are charged with palpable trepidation, the shooting line of fear. But the writing is too facile to lend the actor room to work through Diya’s concerns that have long shadowed her partner.

Cocktail 2 makes a great fuss about the road to marriage. It’s so blaring it gave me a headache. The film skimps on the fun in the second hour to opt for maximum preachiness. If a couple marches down the aisle, it’ll be a big responsibility. Kunal and Diya are insistent on being happy as a couple at the place where they are now. They are tired of being hectored and railed at to marry at the earliest. The couple has been together for years. They’d rather spend the wedding expense on vacations. What’s convenient is how the writing, shared between Luv Ranjan and Tarun Jain, projects to be above the pettiness of legalising a relationship only to ultimately cede all glory to it. Any chance of emotional heat interrupting the film’s equations never truly materialises given the frequently ridiculous screenplay which struggles to be sincere or wrenching. Ultimately, the ball lands in Kunal’s court for the final say.

The game Diya set off has major emotional consequences which, when they inevitably happen, come as a shocker to her. Cocktail 2 makes Divya appear like a fool and Ally a loosely defined vamp. Kunal is the casualty. He is seen as someone hemmed between the machinations of the women. He’s perfectly gullible. The film keeps giving him the clean pass, pushing women into the jostling fray. Kapoor performs with an overdrive of enthusiasm. Sanon’s brief seems to have been to strut and look pretty. There’s something distinctly mannered and practised in how she wields her coolness. When an unexpected emotional attachment wells up at halfway mark, ushering the conflict, it feels like a big moment divested of genuine sting. In the latter stretches, as Ally gets determined in her conquest, Sanon can’t help redeeming a switch from being arbitrary. She just made me desperately miss Deepika Padukone, who gave such splitting ache to the original Cocktail (2012) and made it watchable despite the shared misogyny. This spiritual sequel is too tame for the times we live in.