Amazon Prime dropped the ‘Gehraiyaan’ trailer a few weeks before the film released and many passed it off as mere sophisticated fluff, after all, it was from KJo’s stables. Plus the many passionate smooching and intimate scenes between the lead players gave the impression that this film would be some modern ‘skin’tillating infidelity show interspersed with the ‘F’ word packaged in chic elegance.

But the film which is now streaming on Amazon Prime is indeed a deep, dark surprise enveloped in silky satin covers that immerse you into an in-depth dark complicated world filled with ambition, lies and secrets. Director Shakun Batra whose claim to fame is Kapoor & Sons is truly a master storyteller. He deals with the film with maturity and as the story delves into each complex character, he peels off the skin of the dark tale one by one until you see guttered naked emotions and the unvarnished reality, and realise that there’s indeed more to the tale than one had imagined. 

‘Gehraiyaan’ spotlights Alisha (Deepika Padukone) a yoga teacher who has developed an app and is struggling to get investors for it, in a live-in with Karan, who has left his advertising job to be a struggling writer. The couple has zoned into the nether region where they take each other for granted, are a tad bored in the relationship plus the many everyday monetary issues irritate and cause many differences between them.

 In comes cousin Tia (Ananya Pandey) and her fiancé Zain  (Siddhant Chaturvedi) who invite Alisha and Karan into their extravagant larger than life world replete with a luxe yacht and a sprawling Alibaug bungalow. Zaid and Alisha are instantly attracted to each other. And that’s when the film accelerates into a shadowy, complicated relationship dance between the four and slides into a world filled with treachery, clandestine affairs, infidelity and deep complications.

Deepika Padukone is indeed a revelation. She has portrayed the complex Alisha who has immense trust issues extremely well. Every nuance of Alisha from her vulnerability, her guilt, her anger and then her realisation has been traversed by Deepika amazingly smoothly. You sink into the layered depths of her character and start empathising with her.

Dhairya Karwa, Ananya Pandey and Siddhant Chaturvedi are competent especially young Sid who balances a difficult character that veers in between being a flamboyant real estate go-getter  to a desperate dark shadowy man,  and he does that with a lot of élan.   Rajat Kapoor and the powerhouse performer Naseeruddin Shah are excellent in their cameos. But undoubtedly, it is Deepika who steals the show.

All in all, Gehraiyaan is deep dark complex tale of seared emotions that tantalizingly dig deeper and deeper into complicated depths until you go doobey haan doobey ek duje mein yahan.