Crew: Kareena Kapoor-Tabu’s version of that Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan Pathaan scene lands the punch

Over the months, I wondered if Indian actresses would do a version of this scene and whether the audience would welcome them with the same love. Can wrinkles and crow’s feet inspire reactions similar to aching joints and creaky bones? And, more importantly, would they dare become the butt of an ageist joke in an industry where looks are everything. Eight-pack abs sell films, careers are made based on a perfect body. Our film industry is lenient, lack of acting skills is often forgiven if you can look the part.

Accepting age is hard — accepting it on screen is practically unheard of. In the world of glamour where beauty is not skin deep, and Botox is not just accepted but advised, would a woman accept her age and then move past it? So Crew — for all its missteps — had me applauding from my seat.

Also Read | Crew movie review: Kareena Kapoor, Tabu, Kriti Sanon’s easy-breezy comedy washes away stench of recent Bollywood duds

Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan, playing air hostesses, take a moment off the routine of asking ‘veg or non-veg’. Tabu, the powerhouse that she is, watches curiously as Kareena layers on her make-up. When she can watch no more, she tells her caustically, “Bas kar Cleopatra! Make-up hai, time machine nahi (Stop it Cleopatra! It is just make-up, not a time machine).” Kareena thumbing her nose at Tabu’s self-aware comment is refreshing in a ‘woman-centric film’ (Oh, that done-to-death nomenclature!) which is banking on three women, one each in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

 

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Tabu has been doing it with an elan for years, Kareena did it fantastically in last year’s Jaane Jaan where she refused to have the lines on her face airbrushed. She also spoke about how she was inspired by Kate Winslet owning her age in Mare of Easttown. Winslet, who was also executive producer on the HBO drama, has previously said she twice sent back the promotional poster because she felt it had been altered too much.

However, when you punch up in comedy and say it aloud with a joke, it establishes a paradigm — women can be funny about themselves and their age, and walk away with the laughs. In an industry where the age gap between superstars and their film’s leading ladies can often be as vast as a quarter of a century, Crew feels like a win.

 

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The film has another first to its name — it did away with the “message”. It was the unwritten rule of Indian cinema that if you are making a film with one woman, or many, at the helm, it must deliver a “message”. It is hard to think of any film with a woman at its heart, and in its lead, where there isn’t a chorus always pulling her down and keeping her in her place. Eventually, our lead actress breaks free of the people/circumstances, the “message” is delivered and the woman-centric film has done its duty.

Perhaps that’s what makes Crew so much fun despite its lax writing and product placements — the women are free to just be. Kareena’s Jasmine specifically stands out. She is unequivocal about becoming rich, quicker the better. She is ready to lie, steal and break a rule, or five, to get there. But won’t it finally lead to heartache? Her logic is simple — better to cry in a Beemer than a bus.

Also Read | With Crew, Tabu proves no one does funny like her; but what makes her such a hit with comedies?

Now, men breaking rules in cinema is not an anomaly, it is a genre. Women, however, were supposed to stay on the straight and the narrow and every transgression came with a price. In Crew, however, stepping out of line gets them a suitcase full of gold bars each, and perhaps an appetite for more. And you know what? The audience loves it.

The heist comedy also lets Kareena, Tabu, and Kriti Sanon walk the fine line between what they need and what they want. They own their age and their greed, crack self-aware jokes and show their vulnerabilities. Just the sort of women we need to see in films — real and flawed, greedy and needy, and refusing to apologise for it.