Photograph, the new film written and directed by Ritesh Batra begins with a classic rom-com meet-cute. Walking past Mumbai’s Gateway to India while retuning from buying clothes with her family, Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) encounters Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who takes photographs of tourists for money. After some prodding, he convinces Miloni to buy a picture, but before she can pay him for the freshly-printed photo, her family calls her away. It’s a brief encounter, but one that both parties can’t forget and the film that follows is quietly romantic and beautifully made in a way that recalls Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood Love.
That said, when it starts, it’s hard to tell exactly what kind of romance Photograph will be. At first, it seems like Rafi and Miloni will do their pining on their own, spending the whole film thinking of each other before finally meeting again by chance. Instead, Batra gives their reunion more urgency when Rafi sends Miloni’s picture and pretends she’s his girlfriend to his grandmother because she refuses to take her medicine until he marries. However, the plan backfires when his grandmother decides to visit and meet “Noorie,” the name Rafi gives her because a song with the name in it happens to be playing while he writes the initial letter.
While Rafi actually finding Miloni again would usually seem like the kind of happenstance that could only happen in movies, Batra justifies it, paying off on details established in the film’s opening scenes. There and elsewhere, Batra is constantly using the tropes of film romances but deploying them in such a straightforward, unfussy manner that they somehow seem more believable. Partially, that’s because the big moments that usually make up the meat of romance typically happen offscreen. We see the moment Rafi and Miloni meet again, but we don’t see him ask her to meet his grandmother and pretend to be Noorie. Rather, we see them post discussion, quiet and contemplative as Miloni considers his offer and Rafi tries not to be disappointed that she hasn’t yet agreed.
Perhaps because that moment is so restrained, it makes the fake dating trope and the growing connection between them seem more grounded. Indeed, rather than the rollicking romp we expect from a rom-com, Photograph feels like it takes place in the real world, just a slightly heightened version. Largely, that’s expressed in the script, but it’s also true of Tim Gillis and Ben Kutchins’s cinematography. In the day, it’s bright and colorful. Whenever Rafi and Miloni are conveniently trapped to together because of the rain–which happens a lot–it turns sultry and slick, making their every moment seem filled with potential.
Though that convenient rain is just as much a trope of romantic movies as fake dating, it also speaks to how, for much of the film, Miloni and Rafi are passive players in their own romance. They first meet through happenstance and it’s not until almost halfway through the film that they finally make a decision to see each other outside of their elaborate ruse and Malhotra and Siddiqui’s performances are appropriately restrained. We scarcely see the pair say a word to each other that isn’t also directed at someone else for much fo the film. Instead, their connection is built on furtive glances and thoughtful stares into the distance when they’re alone. It’s almost reminiscent of a Regency Era novel and while those who like their romances repressed will connect with the story, those used to more modern romances may struggle to find the chemistry between the characters.
Still, while that restraint won’t work for every viewer, balking the expectations of a modern movie romance is part of Batra’s point. As Rafi laments near the film’s end, movies can be so predictable and Batra never gives us the big emotional moments we expect. When Rafi and Meloni decide to go to the movies together, the potential and excitement of their sitting so close in the dark comes to an abrupt end when a rat scurries over her feet. When Meloni happens to spot people from her real life while she and Rafi are out together, the dramatic moment where that person tells her parents and ruins everything never comes.
On some level, that constant subversion is refreshing. Batra‘s film never hits the heightened emotions typical of the genre, leaving the audience and the characters in the quiet tension and yearning of the unspoken desire before people admit or realize they’re in love. For those who relish that restrained, Jane Austen-esque romance, the film is sublime, but those more attuned to the big romantic gestures of modern film romances, Photograph will leave them a little cold.
