‘Dhadak 2’ Is About Love, Death, and Caste in India

Review

‘Dhadak 2’ Is About Love, Death, and Caste in India

A new film shatters the Bollywood fantasy around romance and family. September 5, 2025, 2:30 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

A man writes on the arm of a woman as she looks down at him.

Boy meets girl. Cue: gentle breeze, the early hints of a tender ballad, a soft haze of light, the sounds of the world stopping in its tracks. Love, as many an Indian film has shown, is a showstopper. The blurring headiness of love has you doing the inane , the impossible , the jejune —even breaking out into song in the middle of the street.

But there’s no point in having love without drama—especially in Indian cinema. In a country where weddings are often a way of affirming social hierarchy (take last year’s Ambani wedding