How Crew is a breath of fresh air from Rhea Kapoor's brand of rich chick flicks
Crew has motifs of the Rhea Kapoor chick flick- luxury clothes, item songs, and product placements. But they feel more earned than imposed here.
There's a scene in Rajesh A Krishnan's Crew, where Kareena Kapoor's character Jasmine claims that it's always the not-haves who bear the brunt of every calamity or crisis. She quotes James Cameron's 1997 romantic disaster saga Titanic as an example, where the rich rescue themselves through lifeboats and the poor are left behind to die. Interestingly, Crew's co-producer Rhea Kapoor has always been more invested in those in the lifeboats than those who are on the doomed deck. (Also Read – Crew Twitter reviews: ‘Super fun’ Kareena Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Tabu film gets rave reviews from fans)
The rich chick flick
To her credit, Rhea Kapoor has always championed movies with women at the forefront. From Rajshree Ojha's Aisha (2010) and Shashanka Ghosh's Khoobsurat (2014), starring her sister Sonam Kapoor, to his Veere Di Wedding (2018), with Kareena and Sonam, and Karan Boolani's Thank You For Coming (2023), chick flicks galore in Anil Kapoor Productions. But her latest co-production Crew is much more than the conventional chick flick – it's a heist comedy. And what's at the heart of a heist comedy is what seemed to be a non-issue in all her previous movies – money.
For instance, Kareena Kapoor's Jasmine in Crew also has a turbulent past like her Veere Di Wedding character Kalindi. Both are daughters of broken marriages– and while Kalindi is raised by her paternal uncles, Jasmine is brought up by her Nanu aka maternal grandfather. Kalindi's struggles with commitment phobia aren't completely unfounded, and they do hit home, but Jasmine can't even afford to get there. Not left with any inheritance, she can't rise above her hand-to-mouth lifestyle, which even pushes her to resort to pick-pocketing and worse. Jasmine also has trust issues like Kalindi – but in her case, they're tied into the very primal urge of basic survival.
Tabu's character of Geeta (Tabu), firstly, is an age that we don't usually see in Rhea Kapoor's films. She's closer to the age of the protagonist's mother, than one of the leads herself. Her claim to fame is becoming Miss Karnal, the winner of a local beauty pageant, which in itself is a bigger achievement than merely being born into a rich South Delhi or South Mumbai household. But that win can't get her anywhere, as she goes from being a “beauty queen to a bai,” married to Arun (Kapil Sharma), a stay-at-home husband. A middle-class, middle-aged woman is quite a breath of fresh air from the young, woke, manicured beauties of chick flicks, like the spoilt daughter of the airline owner in Crew.
For Kriti Sanon's Divya, the financial crunch is closely linked to pride. A state-level basketballer, her ambition is to be a pilot. But when she's unable to crack the job after a loan-financed degree, she becomes an air hostess instead. Yet she continues to lie to her family that she's a pilot. This small-town, middle-class tactic of maintaining a facade to keep the equilibrium of the family intact is also far removed from the decidedly first-world problems of an Aisha, a Veere Di Wedding, or a Thank You For Coming.
Not a poor cousin
Having said that, Crew isn't a poor cousin of Rhea Kapoor's past chick flicks. It has all the staples of the genre, including designer clothes and luxury bags. However, the style is embedded in the setting of the film. An air hostess' job is all about maintaining both glamour and composure, despite the fact that the airline is likely to be on the verge of bankruptcy. They're supposed to look not only prim and proper but also all dolled up. But do we pause to think how they afford the makeup, the parlour costs, and the fitness regime despite their odd hours and pay cuts? It's shown in a scene where they're made to step on the weighing scale before every flight, where their old, unhealthy manager scrutinises the rising pounds.
Of course, when the air hostesses are not in their airline uniform, they still look glamorous, but only when they choose to. Kareena is consistent on that front because she's shown to be a spendthrift, who splurges her hard-earned money as soon as she gets it, even though her bank balance goes back to nil. Tabu and Kriti also get to slip into splendid dresses after a few con jobs, but the way they carry them feels more earned than imposed. They have secured that lifestyle, by hook or crook, unlike the airline owner's daughter, who demands a stylist change instead of another costume trial.
There are also a couple of dance numbers. Kareena grooves to Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai, whose ku-ku hook is woven into the film's background score. While that lends mischief and playful connivance to the proceedings, the interlude tune slides in to drum up the intrigue and foreboding. The chorus' lyrics itself hint at a mix of suspense, sensuality, and deceit. Another Ila Arun song, Dilli Shahar Me Maro Ghagro, plays at a nightclub when the women let their hair loose, and Naina is the end-credit song that pops up when they celebrate their new and improved purchasing power. Unlike, say, Tareefan, the item songs aren't only a tool to lure the audience in or arbitrarily place product endorsements.
Speaking of which, Crew manages to do the unprecedented when it doesn't let the product placements feel like eyesores. Firstly, the products range from luxury to affordable, just like the fluctuating disposable income of its leads. Secondly, the very idea behind product placements – which were also a common occurrence in Rhea and Ekta Kapoor's Veere Di Wedding – is compatible with what the film is trying to say. No, they aren't seamless or smart, but they reflect the do-or-die spirit of the film's characters. They're hit-and-miss risks that enable women to regain agency to tell and own their stories.
Consider these product placements as the advertisements in a newspaper. They allow a struggling industry to stay afloat and continue to serve its purpose of informing the audience of society's ills. The plot of Crew by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri is also picked from newspaper headlines: an airline going bankrupt, the owner (Vijay Walia, rings a bell?) absconding in a foreign land, and the staff taking to the streets to protest against unpaid dues. These borrowed plot points ground this film into a very immediate, if not urgent, reality. And when three air hostesses go beyond personal greed to bring justice to a nation against its fugitive – the film soars into narrative highs that probably no orgasms in chick flicks could nail.
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