I anticipate that few things on television this year will bring me as much delight as the opening five minutes of Netflix’s The Romantics. The new four-part docu-series, which examines and celebrates Yash Chopra and Yash Raj Films’ origins and legacy, begins with a blooper-esque montage of its star-studded lineup of talking heads in the fun moments immediately before the camera rolls. Last but not least is Ranveer Singh, who makes an entrance only he can.
The Romantics, directed by Smriti Mundra (A Suitable Girl, Indian Matchmaking) and shot over three years, takes us through the YRF filmography by interviewing possibly the best line-up of collective Bollywood fame ever assembled in a documentary effort of this nature.
There are about 40 of them. Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Kajol, and Rani Mukerji are among the Khans, as are emerging stars like Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Ayushmaan Khurana, and Bhumi Pednekar. There’s even an interview with the late Rishi Kapoor, whose humorous, unvarnished remarks and analysis are among the most remembered of the series.
It’s difficult not to be captivated and overwhelmed by The Romantics’ star power, along with its sea of nostalgia as we experience the makings of great films. I had the opportunity to see the first two episodes on the big screen, and I doubt I’ll have another theatrical experience that compares anytime soon. I was smitten somewhere in its array of interviews with performers we know and like, intercut with snippets from the films that first drew us to them.
To experience DDLJ’s swooning, superstar-making highs, Mohabbatein’s stirring melodrama and soundtrack, Chak De’s defining moment, Band Baaja Baaraat’s status-breaking Band Baaja Baaraat, and more? I felt like a child at the finest candy store on the planet.
The first episode provides us with a mild history lesson on Yash Chopra’s roots and meteoric climb. From discovering his voice with Waqt in 1965 to how The Emergency gave rise to the Angry Young Man, to Chandni and his award-winning partnership with Sridevi, he’s covered it all. Not to mention how much he contributed to the Swiss tourist sector, as seen by much footage of the Swiss government honoring him.
There’s even a charming incident of Yash Chopra being mistaken for another visitor on a bus in Switzerland by the conductor, who went on to inform him that if he glanced left, he could see Chopra Lake. The conductor had no idea he was speaking to the guy after whom the train was named.
Multiple voices weigh in on the early 1980s, largely regarded Hindi film’s artistically bankrupt age, which Karan Johar describes as “we started borrowing from the cinema created in the South and we were a bit of a want to be movement at the time” in its whistle-stop tour of the time’s movies. Sounds strangely familiar. The first segment of the series finishes with one of my favorite, unputdownable cliffhangers in recent memory: an empty chair tempting us with the great interview that is to come: the famously reclusive Aditya Chopra.
The second episode covers the story of Aditya Chopra and introduces us to the mysterious man himself (who seems entirely at ease here). Adi (everyone else appears to be on a nickname basis with him, so I’ll get right in) narrates his own genesis tale, with contributions from boyhood buddies Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Karan Johar, and Uday Chopra. Adi always won the dance-offs at their film-family birthday celebrations as a kid, leaving a young Hrithik Roshan in second place.
He then talks about working with his father on films like Lamhe (which is still an objectively scary male fantasy picture) and, two years later, Darr. It was his friend and winning collaboration with a young Shah Rukh Khan – the TV actor turned budding movie star who wanted to be an action hero and opt for darker roles but was forced into the world of romance that would come to define him – that served as the foundation of his friendship and winning collaboration.
“Your eyes have something that can’t be wasted on action” Adi allegedly told him, adding, “In this nation, a celebrity will only be the guy who is every mother’s son, every sister’s brother, and every college girl’s fantasy”. What follows is a detailed look back at the birth of the cultural phenomenon that is DDLJ.
Adi’s remark in the episode, “I think Indian film symbolizes Indians because Indians are individuals who continuously strive to better than who they are,” is extremely striking.
It’s a stray notion that tells a lot about the YRF and Dharma filmmaking schools, as well as the distinct portion of India they represent. Stories that are based on ambition rather than reality and acceptance of who we are.
That ivory tower-led filmmaking shines even brighter in the third episode, The New Guard, which focuses entirely on the nepotism debate. The Romantics risk becoming a shallow, self-congratulatory corporate PR exercise at this point. To some extent, it is (it is produced by Uday Chopra, for example), but when the focus is on the journeys of cherished films, it seems genuine.
We have lengths of Adi presenting the same old points of view, such as how famous kids with no skill can only go so far. Both brothers even highlight Uday Chopra as an example of a famous youngster who was rejected by the crowd. “At YRF, I have a simple belief: I want the finest talent, regardless of where they come from,” Adi adds.
Instead, The Romantics shines clearest when it examines the trajectory of films like Mohobbatein, Chakde De India, the popular Band Baaja Baaraat, and their biggest gamble that paid off – Ranveer Singh. Except for Befikre, which Adi addresses extensively, the series does not dive into the studio’s shortcomings. He describes it as a failure that still aches.
However, except for the Pathaan catastrophe, The Romantics avoids YRF’s recent streak of failures. There’s no mention of the epidemic, the shifting terrain, or Adi’s legendary reluctance to distribute films on streaming services. It’s also interesting to observe the actors and directors that aren’t in the series – ex-YRF staffer turned celebrity Parineeti Chopra, Vaani Kapoor, Preity Zinta, and Aishwarya Raji Bachchan spring to mind. Similarly, where are Siddharth Anand, Shaad Ali, and Kabir Khan in terms of filmmakers? Most intriguing.
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Finally, The Romantics works best when it utilizes the YRF filmography as a jumping-off point to explore Hindi filmmaking in general. Like in the introduction of the fourth episode, we see our huge roster of actors discuss their perspective of and relationship with the word “Bollywood”. The show arrives at a moment when it appears like filmmakers are looking back and enjoying what has passed.
Along with Cinema Marte Dum Tak and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans are stories of how movies came to where they are now, as well as the beginnings of the defining storytellers who brought them there. When it isn’t influenced by personal agendas and posturing, The Romantics performs exactly what it says it does: it recounts the tale of the movies and captures a part of us.
