The Super-Talented Akhtars: Six Recurring Themes We Gleaned From The Movies Of Farhan And Zoya Akhtar

The Akhtar siblings- Zoya and Farhan have now become a force to reckon with in the volatile world of Bollywood with fresh ideas, great direction, and other creative areas not beyond their reach as they have managed to conjure stories as well as acting and singing being Farhan’s forte, with Farhan Akhtar along with Priyanka Chopra teaming up to sing the title track of Zoya Akhtar’s latest directorial venture Dil Dhadakne Do which Farhan is also a part of just like her two previous efforts, Luck by Chance where he played the lead role as well as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, for which Zoya bagged the Filmfare Award for Best Director.

BC tries to understand what makes the Akhtar siblings such hot properties in Bollywood. Some of it definitely has to do with their movies’ universal themes, which people can easily identify with. More here:

Coming-Of-Age Mixed With Bollywood Masala

Both Farhan and Zoya often like to show characters that are the eternal underdogs, persons who have much to fight for even if they belong to the higher strata of society. It is like a gradual progress of their character, their achievements, their emptiness as well as their final success that have become chief ingredients in the stories told by the Akhtar siblings. One thing that the Akhtar Siblings have really managed to do well is to show the metamorphosis of a character as they change from a loser to a winner. Now be it Dil Chahta Hai where all the three protagonists finally buried the skeletons in their closet or Lakshya or Luck by Chance or Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and now Dil Dhadakne Do, all have characters that are out to prove something, change themselves and bring themselves out of the quagmire they are in.

Urban Cocktail And Tadka – All Fused Well

Talking about the upcoming Dil Dhadakne Do we can see a lot of stuffs injected in the narrative – a crazy dysfunctional family, siblings with their set of problems, and of course the much coveted cruise trip, upgraded from the road trip. Yes, very The Royal Tenenbaums like treatment but one can also put in Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon, about lovelorn couples, and that’s what Priyanka Chopra-Farhan Akhtar plays, two estranged lovers with Rahul Bose playing Priyanka’s husband with Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Singh’s sub-plot are of two people who are not really sure of their love for each other and not to forget the coolest mom-dad jodi right now – Anil Kapoor and Shefali Shah. The story is very urban and Zoya is not apologetic about it but you can also see that how she has constantly been inspired by her brother’s Dil Chahtah Hein. Though Farhan moved on to different genres in Bollywood, Zoya herself decided to get into the urban tadka mode, making movies that were far cry from her debut Luck by Chance.

Existentialist Crisis

This has to be a pet theme of both the Akhtar siblings as they always show a form of crisis brewing in the lives of their protagonist. Let us begin with Dil Chahta Hein that had Aamir Khan as an over-confident guy who was not sure of himself, Akshaye Khanna’s own moral dilemmas and of course Saif Ali Khan and his problem of commitment something that was continued in Lakshya starring Hrithik Roshan who played a guy lacking aim in his life and how he finally finds one after joining the army. All these are part of the urban set-up, something that was never really shown before and yes, Dil Chahta Hein definitely was the part of the Bollywood New Wave which tried to create characters that had some connection with the urban milieu. This idea was used by Zoya Akhtar and the inspiration can never be really denied for precisely the template of Zindagi Nah Milegi Dobara was very similar to Dil Chahteh Hein as it showed three friends re-discovering themselves on the road while Dil Dhadakne Do too have something very similar to offer.

Exotic Locales

Both Farhan and Zoya like to put their characters in exotic locales. Be it the Dil Chahta Hai where the story spread across from Goa to Australia as well as Mumbai, with the city in a never before seen avatar or Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara that had Spain as the setting. More importantly, Farhan Akhtar’s Don series was truly international as it again traveled all over the world giving Don his true international colours as no places were left untouched, be it Berlin or be it Malaysia. Often these exotic, foreign locales add something credible to a story and also summed up the alienation the characters faced in their known spaces and by crossing over to the unknown they finally manage to re-discover themselves.

Out Of The Box (And Urban) Characters

Another important aspect of their narrative is the use of quirky, weird characters that stimulate the stories with their severe oddities that click with the audience instantly. For example, in Dil Dhadakne Do, every possible character has something odd about him or her and that’s why the trailer was widely appreciated by one and all. But it was Anil Kapoor who struck the imagination of the audience appearing as the father of Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh and not to mention the peppy mom played by Shefali Shah who can still make heads turn. Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai too had this out of the box element that made it a rage among urban people, with three friends having their fair share of urban wackiness while Hrithik’s role in Lakshya was a cleverly constructed very similar to Vijeta directed by Govind Nihalani. Of course, talking of characters we have to mention Farhan Akhtar’s re-imagination of Don where newer characters were introduced as well as older characters given more layer than the original.

Unique Narrative Styles

One thing that we have to pay special focus on are the narrative styles utilized by the Akhtar siblings. For example, we have to see that how much Dil Chahta Hai has been influential on Zoya Akhtar’s Zindegi Na Milegi Dobara while Dil Dhadkane Do can be considered to be a follow-up which once again focuses on characters both old and young, characters that are often childish as well as mature. Now, it can’t be that far-fetched when we again put in Lakshya and Luck by Chance, two polar opposite movies together, out to prove something. One simply can’t ignore that the Akhtar siblings influence each other to a great extent and Zoya has often assisted Farhan in movies like Dil Chahta Hai as well as Lakshya, so obviously visually as well as in terms of narrating the story, they have complemented each other with some of their movies thematically similar but narrated differently.

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