The Other Way review: Imtiaz Ali’s new short film is atrocious

The Other Way is not only short, it’s also stupid to the point of being annoying. Here’s the review of Imtiaz Ali’s short film.

The Other Way
Cast: Pavail Gulati,Shreya Choudhary
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Rating: 1/5

A still from The Other Way.

Apart from a very engaging actor Pavail Gulati, Imtiaz Ali’s new short-film The Other Way has only one takeway at the end: the realization that the director needs to take a long break from filmmaking.

As a movie maker he seems to have hit a massive roadblock, what with his last two feature films Tamasha and When Harry Met Sejal turning out to be major disappointments from a director who once gave us the sparkling Socha Na Tha, the life-changing Jab We Met and the underrated Love Aaj Kal.

Imtiaz wants us to believe that love aaj kal, is like that only. Young people afraid of commitment to long-lasting relationships. This theme which runs, nay limps, through all his recent films reaches a kind of absurdist acme in The Other Way.

The Other Way is not only short, it’s also stupid to the point of being annoying. The two main characters are a young footloose photographer (played effectively by Pavail Gulati) and a could-be runaway bride (Shreya Chudhary). The girl who gallivants with a stranger moments from the mandap, is so daft, you want to shake her by her shoulders to remind her that love, marriage, commitment are no ideas to be played around with.

Utterly self-centred she takes off on a wild safari of self-discovery on the eve of her marriage. The director seems to enjoy creating protagonists who have no sense of social responsibility. To add to the feeling of a disheartening pandemonium of priorities the story is narrated to us backwards. That is to say, the film starts at the end and ends at the beginning.

I say, whatever you do with such pretentious garbage, it will only end at one place. In the pits. The title is actually a warning for Imtiaz Ali’s admirers. Look The Other Way.