Title: 2 States
English Title: 2 States
Country: India
Language: Hindi
Year: 2014
Cast:
- Alia Bhatt
- Arjun Kapoor
- Amrita Singh
- Revaty
- Ronit Roy
- Shivkumar Subramaniam
- Sharang Natarajan
SYNOPSIS
In the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) located in Ahmedabad, two people from very different backgrounds meet as they are taking their graduate degree in Master in Business Administration (MBA).
Krish Malhotra has an engineering degree, and he is a Punjabi who hails from Delhi. Ananya Swaminathan has an economics degree, and she's from a Tamil Brahmin household who lives in Chennai.
Krish and Ananya become good friends, and then they fall in love. After two years of seriously dating each other, they plan to get married.
REVIEW
2 States is an entertaining movie about a couple who are desperately trying to convince each other's parents that marrying each other is a great idea. Krish Malhotra and Ananya Swaminathan have decided that they need to get their respective family's blessing in order to be happy.
Krish Malhotra: In this world, what's the most important reason to get married? Love!
Krish Malhotra: In India, however, there are a few more steps... The girl's family has to love the boy. The boy's family has to love the girl. The boy's family has to love the girl's family, and the girl's family has to love the boy's family. After all this, if the boy and girl still love each other, then they get married.
I think in most countries, it is somewhat an unspoken rule that a couple's union must be favored by the family elders. It isn't only in India where the boy's family and the girl's family must be on good terms. I think this is the case in many Asian countries, and that is certainly how it has been in my experience.
I hesitate to say that it is required that the boy's family likes the girl's family and vice versa, because I know there are many cases wherein a couple has gotten married in spite of strained relations of their respective families. But most people think it is somewhat necessary because it will definitely make everything so much easier.
Anyway, 2 States also discusses the stereotypes of the Punjabi community in North India and the Tamil community in South India. Their parents are against Krish and Ananya's marriage because of their differences in culture.
Ananya Swaminathan: You know, Krish, it's not about the communities... It's about the kind of people we want to spend our lives with.
Although I understand that the movie purposely went to the extreme with the characterization, it seemed unrealistic because most people try to be polite in society and they don't usually say whatever they are thinking out loud (especially if they are making offensive opinions or judgmental observations).
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2 States
