Spoilers Ahead by Rajeev Masand: Sun, sand and bromance

Healthy male friendships aren’t often depicted honestly on screen, but when directors get it right, it makes for powerful viewing

A group of us friends made an impromptu plan to go to Goa recently. Dil Chahta Hai nostalgia kicked in from the moment we got out of Dabolim Airport and into the car to head to our hotel at Calangute. Can one even get on Siolim Bridge without making an Instagram Reel set to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s earworm title song?

It’s been 22 years since the release of Farhan Akhtar’s generation-defining film about the lives and loves of three twenty-something male friends. Yet, remarkably, DCH remains one of the most relatable depictions of male friendship in modern Hindi cinema. How many times have you used the line “Ussne teri khuddari ko lalkara hai. Be a man, mard bann” while encouraging a friend to take charge of a situation?

Akash, Sameer, and Sid’s hairstyles and look may not have aged well, but it’s hard to name another Bollywood film that gets the nuances of (straight) male bonding so accurately. Released in 2001, the same year as such blockbusters as Lagaan, Gadar, and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, DCH had a refreshing absence of filminess. Most characters dressed, spoke, and thought like regular folks. You knew the boys had your heart when they choose irreverence over sentimentality when responding to Dimple Kapadia thanking them for showing up to celebrate her birthday: “Hum cake ke liye kahin bhi jaa sakte hain.” It’s another line that’s been adopted into parlance since.

Bachelor trip movies such as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (top, 2011) seem familiar because they reflect the friendships we have in real life.

Another film that did male friendship particularly well is Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), directed by Zoya Akhtar. The characters here are more affluent, Goa makes way for Spain, and the conflicts are relatively mature. It’s evident that the Akhtar siblings have a keen eye for what feels lived-in and authentic, so even if the guys in ZNMD are driving around with an Hermes bag in a Buick Convertible and taking part in a tomato-smashing festival in a small Spanish town, their banter never sounds affected. Right, buoys?

No conversation about male friendship is complete without bringing up The Hangover. There have been dozens of bachelor-weekend movies, but Todd Phillips’ raunchy celebration of drunken, drugged out debauchery might well be the gold standard. In Zach Galifianakis’ half-wit bozo Alan, the film gives us a character to both laugh at and root for. They roll their eyes over his sartorial choices (“What’s with the man-purse?”), but the other three men in the ‘wolfpack’ come to warm up to and defend this grizzly child-man.

The Hangover (above, 2009) is yet another bachelor trip movie that did really well.

It’s not hard to see why Alan was the breakout in a film populated with hilarious characters. Every group of friends has an Alan. , boorish, frustrating, frequently obnoxious, but ultimately endearing. Who manages to make every trip, every night out memorable.

We recognise the men in Dil Chahta Hai, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and The Hangover even if we’ve never been duped by a pretty White girl on a beach, or gone on a road trip across Spain, or been so plastered that we woke up with no memory of the night before. Those men seem familiar because we’ve been through the beats of their friendship.