'The Romantics': An ode to YRFs' classic love stories

The Romantics

English (Documentary/Netflix)

Director: Smriti Mundhra

Rating: 3.5/5

Right at the beginning, the makers define ‘The Romantics’ as persons who are imaginative but impractical.

But neither Yash Chopra nor his elusive son Aditya appear to be impractical souls — just people who have an innate confidence to follow their heart. For instance, when industry bigwigs saw the preview show of ‘Chandni’ (1989), the murmurs were loud — Yash is losing his touch, they whispered. One distributor wanted to back away at the last minute. Chopra, who apparently used to get terribly depressed if his movies did not do well, nevertheless had the gumption to say, “No, I have made this movie from my heart...it should and it will work.” And work it did.

Likewise, when Aditya Chopra narrated the script of ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge’ (DDLJ, 1995) to Shah Rukh Khan with whom he had till then only discussed action films, the actor was taken aback. “What is this namby-pamby story of a boy and girl in love who don’t even elope?!” But Aditya was very sure of his tale and convinced Shah Rukh to not close his doors on a romantic movie because “your eyes have something that cannot be just wasted on action.”

‘The Romantics’, a four-part Netflix documentary that wants to gaze at Yash Chopra but is rather enamoured with his son, traces the journey of the soft-spoken director who created the template for the quintessential Bollywood romance drama, a formula that survives till date. It then tells the tale of how the ‘prodigal son’ continued his father’s legacy and breezes through the ups and downs of Yash Raj Films (YRF). The scoop, of course, is proving all theories of Aditya being a rumour wrong and getting the notoriously private director and head of YRF to speak to the camera. Which he does, happily, genially, and sensibly. Just in case you are thinking of nepotism, catch him dodging the N bus by coolly throwing his brother under it!

As promised in the promos, the documentary features nearly all the industry insiders, and as expected, there are no naysayers. There are several enjoyable anecdotes though. Abhishek Bachchan, for instance, narrates how when they were all teens, Aditya Chopra and Hrithik Roshan were dance rivals and held competitions at every birthday party — with Aditya winning every time!

It is an engaging watch alright, though a tad laboured and very conscious of its presence on an international OTT platform (with possible Western viewership). So, you have nearly every interviewee holding forth on the joys, colours and emotions of ‘Indian cinema’ and laying it on thick about how ‘we are like this only’. Err...okay, now can we get back to Yashji?