'Doctor G' review: Ayushmann Khurrana's film tackles gender stereotypes effectively

Ayushmann Khurrana's films can be a genre in itself. The actor, has in the last five years carved a niche in Bollywood by featuring in films that mainly deal with societal taboos. In most of these films, Khurrana plays the ignorant male, who over a course of the film, realizes what's right and finally stands up to face the issue, often becoming a propagator of what's right. Most of these films have a sexual innuendo of sorts attached. Khurrana has by now mastered the art of playing the everyday common man- full of flaws yet a do-gooder. His latest 'Doctor G' directed by Anubhuti Kashyap is on similar lines. 

Based in Bhopal, the film this time tackles a man in not-so-familiar terrorism of medical sciences. Khurrana plays Uday, an MBBS student who wants to specialise in orthopedics in his master and but ends up agreeing to be a part of gynecology as it helps in to stay in Bhopal, close to his mom (Sheeba Chaddha).  He skips the initial 10 days of class. Still, he reluctantly goes on the eleventh day to class on the behest of his cousin Ashok (Indraneil Sengupta) a reputed orthopedic himself and Uday's inspiration. 

He joins Dr Nandini's class ( Shefali Shah) who is a stern, strict teacher and is not happy with Uday's ways of approaching medical sciences. In class, he is reluctant and the only male doctor among a slew of female doctors. He even makes friends with seniors including Dr Fatima (Rakul Preet Singh) and her gang. 

Uday, a man surrounded by women in his life, is the sort who blames everything that goes on in his life on the women. Plenty actually does go wrong and Uday is asked to lose the 'man's touch' and use the 'doctor's touch' to treat patients. But a man who feels cricket is for men and badminton is for women, who in his head, demarcates societal roles according to gender, Uday finds it hard to shrug off the presumptions. 

Written by Sourabh Bharat and Vishal Wagh, 'Doctor G' has a very toxic man surrounded by many strong women. His mother may seem vulnerable, but is actually woke and knows what she wants in life. His girlfriend has dumped him because she feels he suffocates her even though he claims he is not like 'Kabir Singh'. His batchmates teach him a lesson or two in how to approach friendship with the opposite gender and his professor is never eager to praise him for doing his basic duties as a doctor. Is he the first man to have successfully delivered a baby, asks Dr Nandini at one point. For Uday, picking gynecology is a problem because that's a job for women and so he is unable to wrap his head around the fact that how does he lose the man's touch? He judges everyone around- his mother for being on Tinder, his cousin for being involved with an 18-year-old, and his colleague/friend for not saying yes to his advances.

The beauty of 'Doctor G' is the women. From Sheeba Chaddha who is marvelous as the woke mother of Khurrana, to Shefali Shah as the bright, righteous Dr Nandini to even Rakul Preet Singh, who plays the self-aware Dr Fatima with utmost confidence. The film has great actors playing great female characters. 

Khurrana meanwhile fits like a glove in his character of the confused, misogynist Uday who has to unlearn a lot to be more adjusting and sensitive to the people around. He has played this character in other films and so Khurarana gets the tone of the character well in this too. 

Most of the humour is situational and conversational and involves Khurrana and Sheeba Chaddha's characters and the two actors deliver marvelously to the lines. 
The film is very woke. It knows that the taste and the mindset of the audience have changed and hence never shies away from talking about the wants and needs of women- middle-aged as well as young women. It is also heartening to see a mainstream Bollywood film to say the word 'vagina' as normally as it should be spoken without using other terms and hinting at it. After all the film is about a bunch of gynecologists and so talking about female organs is just normal. Some of the scenes are special. The moment where Sheeba Chaddha very categorically mentions how she too wants a man in her life, age notwithstanding stands out. 

While the film tries to break a few myths on gender in a very effective way, 'Doctor G' doesn't leave a very defining impact. Maybe because there are several male gynecologists practicing, in reality, to take this story too seriously or maybe because we have seen Khurrana in far too many similar message-driven films already. While watching the film, there is a sense of deja vu- like you know how the film will pan out or how Khurrana's character will react. 

I would still prescribe 'Doctor G' to you all (see what I did there?) If you like Ayushmann Khurrana's brand of films, add this one to that list.