Cobalt Blue, the directorial debut of National Film Award-winning filmmaker Sachin Kundalkar, trailer was released on Netflix on Saturday after a lengthy delay.
Prateik Babbar, Neelay Mehendale, and Anjali Sivaraman star in the film, which is based on Kundalkar’s best-selling novel of the same name – “Cobalt Blue”
The film, set in Kerala in 1996, is a visual treat that tells a heart-wrenching and heartbreakingly beautiful story.
Here’s a more in-depth Cobalt Blue review.
Cobalt Blue Cast
- Prateik Babbar
- Neil Bhoopalam
- Anant Joshi
- Geetanjali Kulkarni
- Shishir Sharma
- Anjali Sivaraman
- Sachin Kundalkar -Writer & Director
Story
When a brother and sister fall in love with the same man, the events that follow devastate a traditional Marathi family. Based on the novel by Sachin Kundalkar.
Prateik Babbar plays the tenant who changes Tanay’s (Neelay Mehendale) and Anuja’s (Neelay Mehendale) lives. Cobalt Blue carefully balances between dreams and waking life, but not always successfully.
Tanay, a college student, writes poems and mildly flirts with his college professor in 1996, when same-sex love is not yet legal, and in a touristy corner of Fort Kochi (Neil Bhoopalam). With the arrival of a paying guest, the picture-perfect setting – emerald backwaters, spice godowns repurposed as art galleries, and houses that look like luxurious homestays – gets a splash of colour.
Tanay’s imagination is unleashed as this dreamboat without a name, who has stepped out of the pages of a classic romance novel, is heavily sexualised through Tanay’s gaze.
Cobalt Blue is also about Anuja, Tanay’s tomboyish younger sister who prefers hockey to housework. Kundalkar’s novel was divided into his and her sections, with the brother and sister each offering their own perspective on the man who liberates them in vastly different ways.
The novel’s incompleteness of the sister’s point of view carries over to the film adaptation. Tanay’s sexual awakening is aided by Kundalkar’s episodic screenplay, which is primarily in English and Hindi. Tanay’s encounters with Anuja are as hurried as Tanuja’s encounters with the tenant.
Verdict
The erratic and stilted pacing extends to Tanay’s parents (Shishir Sharma and Geetanjali Kulkarni) and older brother Aseem’s disposable scenes (Anant Vijay Joshi). Cobalt Blue comes to life when she attends to Tanay’s adolescent passion.
The film’s most memorable moments are created by Neelay Mehendale’s delicate portrayal of Tanay and Prateik Babbar’s overt hunkiness, which have the vividness of primary colours and the erotic flush of first love. The film receives 8.3/10 IMDB ratings.