Ritesh Batra had a smash hit with his gentle romance The Lunchbox (2013) and then made a couple of less impactful English language films, The Sense of an Ending and Our Souls At Night. But now he has returned to India with Photograph, which is another romance and it is slow, slow, so very slooooooow. I am a fan of non-action films, as we know, but here the longueurs have longueurs which, in turn, have longueurs, plus the characters are so internalised they are essentially inscrutable. I wanted to shake them all and implore: ‘For God’s sake, just say or do something!’
It is set in a gorgeously filmed Mumbai — the light is absolutely ravishing — and in the opening moments we meet Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who takes photographs of tourists at the Gateway of India, urging them to preserve this moment in time. (Don’t we all have smartphones for that now?) Here, he meets Miloni (Sanya Malhotra), who agrees to have her photograph taken — she seems to go along with everything, does Miloni — but is then summoned by her family, so darts away without paying. The plot, which is basically standard rom-com, comes into play because Rafi wants to get his grandmother off his back. She still lives in their home village and is refusing to take her medication unless Rafi becomes betrothed. So he sends her the picture of Miloni, saying this is his bride-to-be, and next thing he knows grandma (Farrukh Jaffar) is en route to Mumbai to meet her. So Rafi must now track Miloni down.
Miloni, star pupil at an accountancy college, wanted to be an actress but her parents said no, Miloni, accountancy is for you. We learn this when her parents talk over her at dinner, as if she doesn’t exist, yet she does not object.
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