Anurag Kashyap doesn’t make love stories in the conventional sense. His cinema is visceral, chaotic, and brutally honest. Romance is never about grand gestures. Desires collide, egos get bruised, and choices unravel in the messiest ways possible. Set against the restless energy of Punjab’s streets, Manmarziyan pulses with longing, recklessness, and unspoken truths. Kashyap, ever the realist, captures both the setting and the mood like only Kashyap can, in a city where love isn’t whispered in poetry but shouted through rooftops, where devotion and destruction are companions.
At the heart of this tangled love triangle is Rumi (Taapsee Pannu), wild and impulsive, tethered to Vicky (Vicky Kaushal), a walking storm of passion and fear. He loves with abandon but fears to commit. Enter Robbie (Abhishek Bachchan), measured, patient, “husband-material” in the traditional sense, but harboring his own quiet storms. It’s an age-old premise. Fiery lovers, a stable suitor and a choice to be made. But Manmarziyan isn’t concerned with novelty. It’s here to examine the mess of it all, the restlessness of a generation that wants it all but doesn’t know how to hold on.
The film breathes through its performances. Taapsee Pannu is ferocious and electric, anchoring the first half with a free-spirited recklessness. Vicky Kaushal embodies the reckless abandon of young love, while Abhishek Bachchan, in an understated but deeply affecting turn, grounds the second half with a controlled intensity.
While Rumi and Vicky’s chemistry is all fyaar and fire, there were stronger undercurrents of love between Rumi and Robbie (the closing conversation is proof) that I wish were better and much earlier explored in the film. It takes too long to get there. Sigh!
Manmarziyan doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it spins with enough fervor, enough rawness, enough ache to keep you watching. It is imperfect, indulgent, but also human. A love story that understands that sometimes, choosing love isn’t about who sets your heart on fire, but who can hold it steady when the flames die down.
Rating: 3/5
Where to Watch: Zee5, Prime Video
Related: All Anurag Kashyap Films Ranked
Watch: 10 Underrated Bollywood Films
