Actors are taken seriously before they become memes. An opposite trajectory has panned out for Bobby Deol. "Class of 83", "Aashram", and "Love Hostel" have signaled a major reversal for the internet’s Lord Bobby. He tells us, he has always been interested in the hard stuff. They just never came his way. Bobby shares, “I’ve been pushing, of late, to do characters that challenge me.”
This is apparent from the opening scene of "Love Hostel". It’s night in Haryana; Dagar, Bobby’s character, is engaged in the cold mechanics of honour killing. He is staring into a phone from slanted glasses—a mix of mercenary and WhatsApp uncle. “(Director) Shanker (Raman) had a clear picture of what Dagar would look like. He wanted me to be in grubby shape.”
Bobby describes Shanker as a ‘saint’—an odd epithet. The cinematographer-turned-director’s last film, Gurgaon (2017), explored violence through a cinematic lens. For Love Hostel, he was inspired by a documentary on the rise of honour killings across north India. The data has been especially spooky out of Haryana, prompting the state government to set up ‘safe homes’ for runaway couples. It’s where Jyoti (Sanya Malhotra) and Ashu (Vikrant Massey) seek refuge after fleeing her family. They’re both Jats, though Ashu—Ahmed—is Muslim.
“I feel [honour killings] is an issue that should be brought to light,” Bobby says. “We were figuring out the background of these characters when I learned about Mula Jats,” Shanker shares. “Many of them have both Hindu and Muslim names. It spoke to me about some sort of a double life.”
While the film’s central couple sprung from their environments, Dagar was a cinematic invention. Bobby says he didn’t care if the character came across as evil. “I remember watching Robert De Niro and Robert Mitchum in the two Cape Fear movies. Or (Javier Bardem in) No Country for Old Men. They’re great performances.
So often we come out of a film in love with the villain.” Which brings us to Love "Hostel"’s ending. Shanker stands by his decision (spoiler ahead) to kill off his primary characters, including Dagar. It seemed too convenient for a complex film. “In the opening scene, the girl who’s being strung up by Dagar tells him that she prays he too falls in love someday,” the director contends. “In a bizarre way, it kills him. I see it as a metaphor for change. His life, as he knew it, is over. Like all of us, he couldn’t keep his heart closed.”