Whenever an Ayushmann Khurrana film is approaching, you might hear somebody jokingly ask about which male body part the actor is exploring this time. The answer is almost always the same, a vestigial organ, passed down from our ancestors called the male ego. On the face of it, Doctor G sounds like another great logline, apt to rope in somebody like Ayushmann: ‘A male chauvinist medical student tries to survive in the all-female gynaecology course.’ But it goes deeper than that.
Uday Gupta frequently pats himself on the back for his liberalism because he is not controlling like Kabir Singh. He is unable to understand women when they tell him he does not listen. “You consider me a bat I guess. You don’t know what I am saying because maybe it is on a different frequency than yours,” his girlfriend tells him before breaking up. He is a slacker who is whiling away his time in a gynaecology course because it’s “for women” and he wants to exert control and steer every relationship he has with the opposite gender.
Doctor G also adeptly avoids the well-trodden, downhill path most social comedies go these days. It is not afraid to question its protagonist at each step, even when he does a heroic deed, like doing an emergency delivery in a corridor. “Should we celebrate you for doing your job?” asks Dr Nandini Srivastav (a bit repetitive but still convincing Shefali Shah), Uday’s (Ayushmann) department head. His batchmates, though, shield him. Even women are guilty of championing men for being just decent human beings. The bar is that low, I guess.
It also doesn’t resort to cheap humour (except in the ragging scenes) to elicit easy laughs. The comedy is situational and thank god there are no references from WhatsApp forwards. It does away with the preachy monologues and speaks more through scenes. For instance, there is a scene where Uday drunk dials his ex and laments at her for leaving him. He is championed by his cousin Ashok (Indraneil Sengupta) for making the call, but a dismissive look from his brother’s underage girlfriend speaks volumes.
It also flips some Ayushmann-film tropes. Like the best friend is not a toxicity enabler in the garb of a comic relief. Abhay Mishra’s Chaddha is Uday’s tenant and friend who is always shirtless like an engineering student but is preparing for IAS. Instead of mollycoddling Uday, he asks the right questions. “Why is gynaecology called ‘Stree Rog Vibhag’? Women are not diseases,” he says.
Writers Anubhuti Kashyap, Saurabh Pant, and Sumit Saxena also do not bother with spoon-feeding their audience. Medical terms are used frequently and the screenplay does not wait for the viewer to catch up. The plot is focused on Ayushmann but it doesn’t feel like other characters are mere catalysts in his change. Although Sheeba Chaddha as Uday’s Tinder-using mother Shobha feels like a role the actor can do in her sleep, it still has some weight by the second half. Even Rakul Preet Singh’s character is given an arc.
The winner, though, is Ayushmann again. He is tremendously enjoyable as the vexed doctor unable to understand what he is doing wrong. It is a strange tic but his character Uday, in the beginning, adjusts the bridge of his specs using his middle finger, almost like giving it to the world. After he goes through a journey and evolves, the finger changes to a thumb. Minute gestures like these add a graceful subtlety to Doctor G. Two big thumbs up to that.
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, Shefali Shah and Sheeba Chaddha
Director: Anubhuti Kashyap
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
(This story originally appeared on Cinema Express)