Of late, Bollywood is obsessed with remakes, tributes, reboots and sequels. One such iconic movie to get a remake was the Marathi blockbuster Sairat. While Sairat was a simple romantic story that was massively appreciated by the audience for its realism, Dhadak was a colourful Bollywood interpretation of the Sairat story with an impressive debut by Jhanvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khattar.
When a film gets a remake, it tends to spark a debate over comparisons. Same is the case with Dhadak and Sairat and that’s exactly what we will delve into.
Performances
In Sairat, Archi is the daughter of affluent landlord and political leader and shown to be a rich brat who is stubborn and smart. With a fearless personality, cupid strikes when she meets Parshya, a simple guy from a lower caste. Right from their accent to the mannerism, both the actors (Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar) live their characters and make the audience fall for them. Their collective struggled against the caste system leads to many moments where the protagonists go through a roller coaster emotional ride.
In Dhadak, Jhanvi’s Parthavi comes across as more delicate and prettier, unlike the natural almost makeup-free look of Rinku’s Archi. But then, Jhanvi gets a Rajasthani accent just right, like her co-star Ishaan. This makes their characters mould well to their settings (Rajasthan). On the other hand, Ishaan comes across as more carefree and comical as compared to the more naive looking Akash in Sairat.
Treatment of the story
Sairat was a low budget Marathi movie that won hearts for the realism that its story had. The way the movie depicted caste discrimination and the idea of honour killing in a commercial package was just perfect. Dhadak too tries to achieve a similar impact with a near-faithful story adaptation. But the things with remakes is those familiar with the original story will lose the element of surprise. Something that Sairat achieved beautifully with its twist ending.
Cultural references
Dhadak is not a complete remake of Sairat as the backdrop, setting and certain scenes are vastly different, giving it a fresh appeal.
Sairat was set in Jeur village situated in Karmala Taluka of Solapur district, Maharashtra. The filmmaker, Nagraj Manjule chose to use Koli dialect in the film which was a great choice.
On the other hand, Dhadak is set in Udaipur, Rajasthan. The rich heritage, monuments and cultural fair of Rajasthan are beautifully captured in the film. The dialect used in the film is Mewari, a local language spoken in Rajasthan which was fun to hear.
Songs
Three songs from Sairat become insanely popular which are Yad Lagla, Sairat Zaala Ji and Zingaat. Zingaat, in particular, went on to be the year’s Marathi dance anthem and still continues to be so at parties.
On the other hand, Dhadak saw Sairat’s music directors return to recreate the Marathi original’s soundtrack for the Hindi remake successful. Pehli Baar and Zingaat got the same love as their original versions. But the surprise hit was the title track of Dhadak which caught on with people for its melodious tune.
Climax
In order to give a different perspective to the movie, director Shashank Khaitan chose to slightly deviate from the original when it came to the climax. This made it interesting to see how a slightly different outcome can leave a totally different impact on the audience. Now, this is spoiler territory so I would recommend you check out the movies rather than me revealing the ending.
Final Thoughts
The reason behind Sairat’s success was its universal story. Almost every part of India could be reimagined as the setting for the movie and it would work. That’s exactly what Dhadak benefited from. The story’s pan-India resonance went on to gain acceptance in the Hindi markets too and became successful at the box office.
So have you seen both the movies? What do you think about both of them? Just in case, if you have seen either of them, I would highly recommend you check them out on ZEE5.