It is the context of this story that disturbed me. There is nothing wrong with showing a woman as a vamp (in fact, during our first in-person FC Front Row event, Deepika Padukone noted that she would love to play a vamp one day, and the audience cheered in anticipation), or showing a woman leading a man on. Until then, we assume Ramisa’s father forced her to marry this other guy, who is so irrelevant to the film his face is not even shown at his own wedding, covered by the sehra. We find this out in the last half-hour of the film. The twist is that Ramisa is a vamp - that she used Ishana for sex, while already having a steady boyfriend of 2 years back in London. It is dedicated to him, his life, and his death. A portrait of Siva, the man Ishana’s character is moulded on, is shown at the end of both films. RX 100 and thus Tadap is based on true events - apparently. And it is this twist that I found not just mildly, but intensely worrying, even sexist. It is this twist that puts the film, which until then was treading the almost too familiar path of the heartbroken male lover, in the cultural radar. RX 100 was a film that worked only - and I use the word ‘worked’ very fast and loosely here - because of the final twist. What is it? Truly, what is it? I am asking, because I am not entirely sure what to make of it. Tara Sutaria is barely able to hang onto the vapidity of Ramisa’s dialogues.
(Apparently it is) Because of these cuts, what was at its source an entitled, insolent character comes across here as watery, whatever. Instead, she is given a polaroid camera, as if staged, photographed nostalgia can be a character trait. She is less insistent, less creepy than Indu. The bitter banter Indu has with her conservative grandmother is axed. Ramisa, on the other hand, has her character shaved off from Indu, her source material. In RX 100, it is a slow motion song that establishes longing. An important scene, when Ishana finds out that Ramina is getting married to someone else, plays out against blasts of a stone quarry. This is evident in the sweep and scale of this film - a lot more polished than the Ram Gopal Varma inspired askew and odd angles of RX 100.
It is, afterall, the launchpad of a star-ish son. Every attempt is made to ensure that Ishana does not look like a “wimp”. Later, Ramisa suggests how they should kiss - she will attack the upper lip, while he should savour her lower lip - but here, too, unlike RX 100, where the hero was established as a virginal hotbod-hothead, we are not told that Ishana hasn’t kissed or fucked or loved before. Similarly, Ramisa casually offers Ishana a blunt at a rave, but we are not told that Ishana has never smoked weed before. When Ramisa is gawking at Ishana, he is not shirtless, so the camera, instead, gazes at his shirt in the ab-area with a brief detour of a crotch shot. In Tadap, this feisty insistence is dampened down. The heroine is the lusting creature, gawking at the hero’s abs, pulling him close when he’s visibly uncomfortable, initiating the first contact, the first kiss, the first unbuttoning, the first smoke. In RX 100, the Telugu source material for Tadap, the first half has a refreshing subversion. Ishana was adopted by Daddy at a young, impressionable age, sharing a love that has both paternal and fraternal instincts. Ramisa is the London-returned daughter of the local politician, played by Kumud Mishra, and Daddy is the politician’s right hand man. Were the names reverse engineered for this joke to land? Is this what “subversion” looks like? A name transplant? In trying to think of wedding hashtags for the two, Ishana’s father, Daddy (Saurabh Shukla) - yes, that is both his name and his role - comes up with #Ramina, but quickly discards this, because of how similar it sounds to “Kamina”. What are these a-religious, a-gender names? Ishana, a feminine-adjacent name - names ending in vowels are often feminine, no? - is given to the hero, and Ramisa, a Muslim-adjacent name is given to a Hindu heroine.
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