Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui

Manu runs a bodybuilding gym in Chandigarh and has built his life around a particular idea of masculinity. Maanvi arrives at the gym as a Zumba instructor. They get together. Then she tells him what she has to tell him: she is a trans woman. His first reaction is anger and a sense of betrayal. Abhishek Kapoor directs. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Manu and Vaani Kapoor plays Maanvi. It is among the first major productions in mainstream Indian cinema to put a trans woman at the centre. Until then trans characters had been used largely as comic devices or marginal figures; this film takes the relationship and the rejection as its direct subject. The casting was what got criticised most. Choosing a cis actress for a trans character was questioned by LGBT organisations and critics; the same argument has attached to many productions worldwide, and this became one of its most visible instances in India. The second criticism concerns the direction of the narrative. The story proceeds through Manu rather than Maanvi; the real subject is a man's reckoning with his own idea of masculinity, and Maanvi becomes the instrument of that process. The title comes from a song. Who it is for: viewers following the shifting social terrain of Indian cinema and Khurrana's choice of subjects. Who it is not for: on the question of representation the film runs into its own limits, and the reconciliation at the end arrives far too quickly.