7 Year's of Cocktail: How Deepika Padukone Became a Force to Reckon with Post This Film

Post a blockbuster debut in 2007, the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Om Shanti Om, Deepika Padukone became the next big thing in Bollywood. Offers were pouring left, right and centre. She did find success with films like Bachna Ae Haseeno and Love Aaj Kal, but a majority of her choices backfired and bombed. Her professional life was at an absolute nadir and that may have been because of her struggle with infidelity and depression in her personal space. In 2012, Imtiaz Ali gave her another film, this time as a writer, and directed by Homi Aadajania, called Cocktail, also starring Saif Ali Khan and debutante Diana Penty. The title could be deciphered in multiple manners. Either you could say it was a cocktail of love, friendship, comedy and melodrama, hence the moniker. Or the leading lady was a perpetually inebriated hottie that’s why they called it Cocktail. Well, to each his own.

For the first time since Love Aaj Kal, this was Padukone’s first role where she had the opportunity to nail a fantastically written part in a flawed film. She played Veronica, a free bird who’s absolutely unapologetic and unabashed about her booze and swindles. Penty played Meera, a Sanskari and gullible girl who’s duped by her husband, Randeep Hooda. And then there was Gautam, Saif Ali Khan, a womanizer who wore his heart on his sleeves. What started as a film about three drastically different characters became a maddening ménage a trois when circumstances bring all of them together under one roof. Meera hates Gautam, Gautam loves Veronica and Veronica is only using Gautam to gratify her carnal appetite. As the story unfolds, Gautam falls in love with Meera and Meera and Veronica both fall in love with Gautam. It turns all chaotic and cacophonous.

The first half of Cocktail was a total joyride and a complete breeze. Boman Irani and Dimple Kapadia were absolute hoots and Khan displayed the kind of sharp coming timing he was always known for. Adajania may have lost steam post interval, what kept the momentum of the film going was Padukone’s transparent performance. It felt as if she reflected her real demons on the celluloid and ultimately made Veronica an extension of her own emotional fragility. It also marked the beginning of a force to reckon with, as she went on to deliver one blockbuster after another. Today, if Padukone is a powerhouse of a performer, a lot of credit goes to Cocktail. It was a flawed film but sometimes, we are eager to witness scintillating acting despite being aware of its imperfections. Veronica is one such character.