Any viewer cynical enough would look at The Romantics and wonder about the docuseries being a vanity project. It won’t be wrong, as Yash Raj Films is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Therefore, making a docuseries about the origins of Yash Raj Films and its founder, director Yash Chopra, does make its malicious critics call it a vanity project. Bankrolled by YRF and distributed by Netflix, The Romantics could have all the hallmarks of a candy-floss documentary airbrushing through all of the skeletons in their closet while evoking and shining a spotlight through all its successes.
Thankfully, the fears articulated in the prior paragraph hadn’t entirely come true. Releasing on Valentine’s Day, a documentary about a studio synonymous with the romance genre in the Hindi film industry is interesting enough. For fans of “Bollywood” or “Hindi Film Industry” since the 1960s, it is an odyssey through the history of Indian cinema with appropriate contextual clues fed via interviews, be it from industry insiders, notable directors, or Bollywood actors (Karan Johar, Shah Rukh Khan, etc.).
The first episode fascinatingly shows us the rise of Yash Chopra, the director, about his eventual success and how his movies became household names. The first episode also efficiently recaps the quintessential moments of the different templates the film industry employed, especially touching upon the “Angry Young Man” template. But at its core, it explains the ethos and vision of Yash Chopra’s filmmaking, which, for better or worse, became the blueprint for the entire genre of filmmaking for the next couple of decades.
However, “The Romantics” had sold itself as the first form of media ever to interview the reclusive head of YRF Studios, Aditya Chopra, or “the prodigal son,” as the second episode chooses to denote him. Unsurprisingly, Aditya Chopra becomes the focal point through which director Smriti Mundhra chooses to show the entire journey of this studio from the 1990s to the present day and how its existence as a cornerstone of the film industry is currently unquestionable.
It’s the cheap thrill of seeing Aditya Chopra finally interviewed that vaults this documentary over the bar. His reclusiveness has been the butt of jokes but has also given him an aura. As the aura finally breaks, the audience is introduced to a man who is in many ways an “impractical visionary” or “a romantic” like his father, except the impracticality has given way to an instinctual business drive and an uncanny ability to hit on the pulse of the audience. The respect Chopra gives to “the audience” as a collective is oft-repeated as a mantra for his success.
“The Romantics” also surprises you in its approach. It does not gloss over some of YRF’s missteps or shy away from some of the pressing questions about the film industry itself. It’s in choosing how to tackle those issues that some of the fascinating curveballs are thrown. The candor with which Chopra admits that nepotism doesn’t automatically translate to success by directly throwing his brother under the proverbial bus is both hilarious and surprising in its harsh reality.
On the other hand, Uday Chopra comes across as affable but also cognizant of his standing. The shield of privilege is given an added coat of experience and life lessons, be it through failures or losses.
Like any documentary with an inherent bias already fed into it, The Romantics suffers from choosing to spotlight particular aspects or actors of the “new guard” and ignore others, especially when recent history clearly states the opposite. But history also reinforces the myth and instinctual drive of YRF as a studio and its head, if the success through the years of 2004–2006 is any indication (2007–2008 were very subtly discarded from the discussion).
Even if “The Romantics” could feel like a victory lap for a studio, at its core, it’s also a love letter to a genre of movies and a style of moviemaking this country has perfected to a certain degree thanks to Yash Chopra and YRF. The success of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (1995) is given almost its entire episode. It explores the economic policy change leading to globalization in India and Aditya Chopra’s perfection of straddling between conservatism and a progressive outlook. Furthermore, the episode shows how the movie became an influential piece of artwork for succeeding generations. Similarly, YRF’s policy of launching with new directors or new actors is also given its due.
The final coda, dealing with Yash Chopra shooting his final film (“Jab Tak Hai Jaan) to his death, is the emotional heft the docuseries chooses to end on. It’s smart because the emotional throughline throughout the documentary is a filmmaker’s love for the romance genre. It’s what led him to create a studio and inspire successors to continue his ethos of filmmaking and spawn numerous movies molding the genre as time passes and filmmaker leaves the playing field with a last successful gasp at the box office.
“The Romantics” never forgets to be a love letter to the movies and to be entertaining in its own right. Thus, it becomes a comforting yet informative watch for cinephiles and fans of “Bollywood” alike. It increases my curiosity to dive back into Bollywood, with its focus on the glamour and splendor of the romance of an epic musical.
