Dissection: The Romantics’ YRF Documentary – Part 1
Today’s dissection post is going to be about ‘The Romantics’, the Yash Raj documentary released on Netflix on Valentine’s Day this year.
If you have no idea what it is or have not seen it, here’s the trailer:
We have been planning this post since we saw the documentary because there was something about it…
Hmm, it gave us major narc or even megalomaniac vibes! As if they created a whole documentary to show or rather remind people (industry people + the rest of the world) how and why they are this powerful. It was as if the interview Anurag Kashyap did to criticize Aditya Chopra (AC) and Yash Raj Films really got to them to the point that Mr. India himself had to un-Mr. India himself and come in front of the camera to remind people who he was and what he is! Going by the positive reaction when this doc was released, it worked in reminding people what YRF is and how powerful AC is. Only a few saw it for what it really is!
But after watching all four episodes, it’s clear that this is not your usual documentary. If you have seen documentaries about Bollywood, as they did with the Jiah Khan case. It had both sides + professional opinions on what could have happened to her. In other words, it wasn’t biased and it didn’t glorify her situation. This documentary is clearly a PR exercise to erase all the bad decisions they have made that exist in the minds of the audience and their industry peers.
If it wasn’t for Adi’s nod, the project wouldn’t have happened. He not only greenlighted the project, he also personally supervised every aspect of the project. Smriti Mundhra is on board as the director of The Romantics. But it is Adi who decided what goes, and what not. SKJ Bollywood News
Obviously, it was disguised as an ode to the late Yash Chopra and his romantic films but it turned out to be a documentary glorifying YRF and letting everyone know that the man helming this big studio is super smart in case you get fooled by the films he green-lit.
Compared to other documentaries, this one is biased and produced by the Chopras which meant the big man himself had full control over what and who to show in the four episodes. He did the smart thing, though. His name is not credited as a co-producer but his brother and YRF are credited. The director herself, Smriti Mundhra, has connections with YRF as her father was the first man to bring Yash Chopra films to the States. He had his theatre there that showcased Yash Chopra’s films.
The Romantics – Episode 1
They do start with an introduction to Indian cinema but most of their clips and visuals are all from Yash Raj Films. The first episode is about that and how Yash Chopra became a director and his marriage and wife Pamela Chopra’s influence on him.
The details have already been out there in public for years as both Yash and Pam have always been vocal about their relationship. What is new here are the pictures and their wedding video which had to be re-processed by YRF to be presented clearly on video.
There are some funny stories about Sridevi and her mother. Rishi Kapoor talks lovingly about his equation with Yash. According to the director of this documentary, Rishi shot his part before he fell sick again. But he does look quite well in the video, so much so we thought they might have interviewed him at the ‘Jab Tak Hain Jaan’ premiere.
As the episode ends, they bring in snippets of Aditya Chopra by showcasing many unseen pictures of him as a child and young man.
It plays off as a big deal that he is finally going to be on camera, which is because the man is not social, or whatever you would call that. He has always been scared to appear on camera. His near ones always play it off like he’s that way ’cause he doesn’t want to be recognized when he goes to watch films and all that. But the man truly seemed scared of being photographed and he used to go to great lengths not to be pictured. As for being interviewed, it was said that he refused interviews due to the drama that happened with his first film.
The Romantics – Episode 2
This episode is about Aditya Chopra and everyone’s perception of him. Then they move on to how smart he was before he became a director and how he was always interested in working in films.
The story of Hrithik Roshan and Aditya Chopra always competing in dance competitions has been outed years ago, there’s no actual video of him dancing but it was told he won every dance competition against Hrithik. He was, after all at that time, the son of India’s biggest director so…#justsaying
They talk about this diary that he had as a kid about movies and box office collections. Anupama Chopra once mentioned this somewhere. He sounds like a kid who was obsessed with movies and nothing else but movies.
And then boom!
Aditya Chopra appears on camera voluntarily for the first time in years.
He talks about meeting SRK and how he approached him for ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’. Though he didn’t mention that he wanted a Hollywood actor for the role, Tom Cruise, his father shut him down and then he went to Saif Ali Khan but Saifu didn’t have free dates.
AC mentions how he didn’t want the couple in DDLJ to rebel and elope but wanted the boy to gain the trust of the father because that’s how he thought things should be, he grew up in a secure family environment, he said. Kind of funny when he did the same (rebel and move out) when his parents didn’t accept you-know-who.
Why not Kajol?
He spoke about DDLJ at length focusing on SRK and KJo but not really discussing why he chose Kajol in the film. Why was he also interested in getting Kajol for his other films? He never really got into that.
If you think about it, Kajol is mad and for someone like him to want her in his films, there must be a reason. There are fun snippets of Kajol annoying him, trying to get him to talk to the camera but he wasn’t having any of it. There are also fun parts of SRK joking around with Yash Chopra, who fully entertained him.
SRK takes credit for that fight scene at the end of the film. Strangely, we vividly remember watching the film and our old lady exclaimed: there’s no need for this action scene in this film, it ruined the flow of the film!
Moving on, everyone invited to talk in this series barring the senior actors, talk about the effect that DDLJ had on them. Basically, actors who get paid big money were asked their opinion about the first film of the man who pays them that big $$.
And Lily Singh. She gets introduced and she also goes on to talk about the effect DDLJ had on her. What about PC? Why was she not in it? She was so besotted with the character Raj that she almost got him years later. 😉
Then they showed random clips of SRK getting mobbed to prove how everyone went crazy when the film was released. Some of these clips were actually from ‘Veer-Zaara’ promotions in France. 🙃
The long cinema run of DDLJ
You all know how long this film has been running in theatres. They make it a point to remind us every hundred years!
Here’s what we don’t get. The cinema owner Manoj Desai mentioned how when they stopped running the film, he got phone calls asking and threatening him why and how does he have the audacity to stop showing this film? Isn’t it strange he doesn’t question or tell us where these phone calls were coming from? Was it the underworld? This is the same man who appears in videos criticizing actors with no fear and he last spoke about how the overconfidence of Vijay Devarakonda destroyed his film. Vijay had to meet him in person and apologize. So we are wondering how come, this person can be scared of random calls coming in. So scared that he decides to keep the film running in cinemas at his own cost? Obviously, it’s not running houseful every day, so how does it cover the expenses? Does it make sense?
Or shall we go by the original story doing the rounds that Yash Chopra wanted his son’s first film to be historic, so their company pays this theatre to keep this film running? Kind of like how they are doing everything they can to have their latest release ‘Pathaan’ break records. Does this make sense?
Last public appearance of Aditya Chopra
According to AC, DDLJ winning max awards was a great thing but he stopped attending awards because he didn’t want validation from them and he didn’t want to keep on counting his awards. Yet, he had no issues proudly showcasing or rather showing off the other awards his production won in years after that. Whatever happened to you don’t believe in awards? His dad used to attend most award ceremonies, though, and pick up their winning trophies.
He makes no mention of the drama that occurred before that. How he didn’t give credit to the others who assisted him in making this film a reality, including Honey Irani who wrote the screenplay, and Javed Siddiqui who wrote the dialogues. Both didn’t appear in the credits at all as Yash gave his son sole credit for writing the screenplay and dialogues.
If you think about it, has AC on his own been able to recreate that DDLJ magic with his other work, his other films? To this day, he is still using DDLJ’s success to remind the audience what he made. The man recently recreated DDLJ into a Broadway story. He wouldn’t have to do that if his other films were big successes. So was he really solely responsible for its (DDLJ) success? Or was it with the help of seasoned industry veterans? Are these people crazy or greedy for demanding their share of credit?
We have noticed when watching a few Yash Raj films that they credit AC as the story writer. It’s quite something since he is running a huge studio and yet he has time to write so many stories. To be fair, most of these are ideas based on Hollywood films like ‘Bunty Aur Babli’, ‘Dhoom’, ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ and so on.
Sound familiar? 👇 👇 👇
A hidden Blind Item
END OF PART 1…
Check out PART 2 HERE.
STAY TUNED!
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