This form, so original and fresh, demands similar storytelling. Even the language – the darting, colliding verses in ‘Bambaiyya’ Hindi – is homegrown. The context is local and so is the setting. At one point, he takes a jibe at the mainstream rappers, saying, “ Isko rap bolte hain? Yeh dekh meri gaadi, mere joote, yeh dekh daaru, chhokri.” Mumbai street rap – raw, irreverent, restless – melds the personal and the political. Murad’s music has voice – or at least that is the intention. But not all is bleak for Murad: He has Safeena (Bhatt), his girlfriend from high school, and hip-hop, a music genre with foreign roots, that acquires momentous meanings: distraction, escape, home. His father, Aftab Sheikh (Vijay Raaz), a driver, frequently discourages and rebukes him he’s also brought home a second wife. He lives with his parents, grandmother, and younger brother in a small house, in Dharavi. Gully Boy opens to Murad, a final year college student. Gully Boy thus poses a formidable challenge: to become a part of a world she has not seen before. Even her debut, Luck By Chance, set in Bollywood, was far removed from Dharavi.
GULLY BOY REVIEWS MOVIE
But since this is a movie by Zoya Akhtar, a deceptively meta filmmaker, you also wonder whether this is self-referential, some sort of a semi-serious apology?īecause like those tourists, Akhtar is an outsider here too, and her last two films, centered on the mega-rich, literally belonged to a different world. It’s a funny scene, as the ones indulging in exoticising look clueless and superficial.
“Every inch has been used,” says the other.
In an early scene in Gully Boy, starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, some foreigners are on a slum tour in Dharavi. Note: This review of Gully Boy, originally published on February 14, 2019, has been republished in the light of the film having been declared India’s official entry for the Oscars.
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