Tu Yaa Main Review: Adarsh Gourav-Shanaya Kapoor's Film Is Too Gimmicky

Tu Yaa Main feels rather indulgent for a survival drama. You can see where it's headed, and it just grows tiresome after a point, observes Mayur Sanap.

There's a striking clash of worlds as Tu Yaa Main introduces its protagonists.

Adarsh Gourav is Maruti Kadam, a wannabe rapper from a faraway Mumbai suburb where queuing for water tankers is a part of life.

Shanaya Kapoor plays Avani Shah, a star influencer who enjoys her private pool in her South Mumbai mansion.

Their social status gap is far bigger than their social media followers. He has 20,000 followers while her couple of million give her celebrity status.

His gully ke friends jokingly call him 'Valentino Rossi', and she lives up to her online persona 'Miss Vanity'.

When their worlds collide, they do what Hindi film leads inevitably do: Flirt, banter, and then fall in love.

There is no parental drama blocking the relationship either. Avani carries the childhood trauma of losing her parents and now uses independence to keep her only family, her sister and brother-in-law, at a distance.

Meanwhile, his mother's poha and chivda make her feel instantly at home.

Is this a fling, a fantasy, a situationship, or just an escape? The answer arrives when the story's third wheel is introduced: A killer crocodile!

That is when the edgy side of Tu Yaa Main kicks in and the film sheds its rom-com skin to become a creature thriller that pushes the couple to their limits.

Why Tu Yaa Main Feels Gimmicky

For a Gen Z-coded romance, this is a zany idea that sounds much better than it plays on screen.

The film opens with Avani and Maruti trapped in a 20-feet-tall, empty pool, screaming for help as the 'gutter ka Godzilla' waits to strike. A flashback fills in their backstory, and most of the first half is spent building their romance.

It's unclear how much the film borrows from the Thai original The Pool, but the cosmetic changes to the love story by writers Himanshu Sharma and Abhishek Bandekar feel more gimmicky than effective. Without revealing too much, the twist impacting the couple's dynamic is jarring and feels utterly unconvincing.

Convenience drives the plot of Tu Yaa Main, especially when the action begins in the second half.

The couple embarks on a road trip to Goa, but monsoon rains force them to take shelter in a rundown hotel that seems to invite trouble.

The phone battery dies at the worst moment. The other guests quietly disappear from the hotel. No hotel staff is around. The one man who comes to help makes a decision so dumb that it sends him straight into a death trap, and he is supposed to be a cop!

Bejoy Nambiar's direction favours style over substance

Director Bejoy Nambiar seems more interested in chasing cool moments than building believable ones, which matters because audiences have heightened attention to every small detail in a film like this.

Some early details promise clever payoffs. Maruti cannot swim. Avani can hold her breath underwater. You wait for these details to matter in a big way, but the payoff is rather weak.

It becomes hard to tell what the film wants to be. Is horror the vehicle for a romance, or is romance just decoration for creature thrills? Because the love story never sinks in emotionally, and the horror depends on tired, cliched tricks.

The crocodile attacks are laid out with an overkill of jump scares, and the creature behaves in ways so over-the-top that the fear turns into accidental comedy. After a point, you start anticipating the tricks rather than feeling the danger.

There is also an oddly placed message about environmental damage and human-animal conflict, but it appears and disappears before it can say anything meaningful.

Songs interrupt the momentum at random points, and the popular track Fame Us drops in so abruptly that it feels like an afterthought during the editing.

At 150-minute, Tu Yaa Main feels rather indulgent for a survival drama. You can see where it's headed, and it just grows tiresome after a point.

Adarsh Gourav and Shanaya Kapoor are watchable

The performances are serviceable and both actors remain watchable.

Adarsh Gourav does more with Maruti than the script gives him, and he is a treat to watch. Shanaya Kapoor plays Avani with spunk and looks the part, though the camera oddly lingers more on Adarsh's reactions during her dialogue-heavy scenes.

Amid the chaos, the film drops some playful nods to old Hindi cinema.

A street vendor watches Amitabh Bachchan carry a lifeless crocodile in Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswathi, and in another one, Rekha's Khoon Bhari Maang is cheekily referenced during the crocodile's hunting spree. These fun callbacks are the kind of pulp touches you would see in Vasan Bala or Sriram Raghavan's films.

The film keeps nudging the audience with cheeky ideas, though there are a couple of smartly staged moments, like a sequence with a pet dog and another with a jeep that briefly raises the tension.

Remy Dalai's cinematography captures this giddy chaos well, especially the way he captures the rain-soaked stretches and the frantic third act.

By the time the film wraps up, it's disappointing that a very little of Tu Yaa Main's grit truly sticks. The all-too-gimmicky thrills barely leave a scratch.

Tu Yaa Main Review Rediff Rating: