Karan Johar warned Shakun Batra of ‘polarising’ reactions to Gehraiyaan

Karan Johar had warned director Shakun Batra about the ‘polarising’ reactions that Gehraiyaan would get before it came out. 

In a round table discussion with the critics of the movie, Johar and Batra talked about the mixed reviews that the movie got.

Featuring Deepika Padukone, Siddhart Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday and Dhairya Karwa in lead roles, the movie has been a subject of debate since its release.

“We were talking; Karan and I, before the movie came out, and we knew that there were going to be opinions. We knew there would be polarising opinion, but I never knew the conversation would get here, and be this big,” Shakun said.

“I did prep you for it,” Karan responded. He nodded when asked by the moderator if he expected the ‘strong’ reaction before its release.

“He did say this can be polarised. Obviously, he’s somebody who’s seen films release over decades, he has a little more sense of how the audience can react. I was prepared for it, but the intensity…,” added the Kapoor and Sons director.

The producer-director duo said that they were there to ‘discuss’ the movie and not ‘defend’ it as their goal was ‘to learn, to absorb, and over time, have the objectivity’ to understand what might have been the reason to such reaction from the audience as well as from the critics.

Batra also addressed another common concern of the audience about the genre of the film. He shared how many complained the movie changes genres without warning. Audience had not expected the twist because the marketing was different than what the movie had in store for the viewers.

He responded, "I do agree, can more foreshadowing or a little more preparation for that help? Yes. But I also feel that would give away too much. I want to hold a little mystery, because he’s the guy you can’t predict. You don’t know, even in that moment, if he will do it or not.” He referred to the scene where Zain (Siddhant) tries to kill Alisha (Deepika).