Tu Yaa Main and O Romeo: When cinema moves to the lyricism of music!

Both Bejoy Nambiar’sTu Yaa Main and Vishal Bhardwaj’s O Romeo have a lyrical beating heart and interestingly, they use it in completely different ways. Here's how!

Last Friday gave us two love stories that couldn’t have looked more different on paper and yet, strangely, they seemed to hum at the same frequency. Vishal Bhardwaj’s O' Romeo, a much-awaited reunion between the director and Shahid Kapoor, arrived with the weight of legacy and expectation. Bejoy Nambiar’s Tu Yaa Main, on the other hand, felt like a sharp, new-age entry into the romance space that was younger, riskier, and gleefully genre-bending. Now, February may brand itself as the month of love, but both these films take romance somewhere far more dangerous than candlelight dinners and soft-focus confessions. Because in both films, love is tested in survival mode.

In O' Romeo, survival plays out in a bloody, male-dominated gangster world where ego is currency and violence is a language. In Tu Yaa Main, survival is literal as two people are trapped in an abandoned pool with crocodiles circling them. One is drenched in gunpowder and Shakespearean tragedy; the other smells of damp concrete and reptilian fear. And yet, beneath the chaos, both are asking similar questions about love, identity and what remains of us when we are pushed to the edge. What no one saw coming is what quietly binds both films - musis, not just as a playlist of banger soundtracks but as a pulse.

Also Read: Wuthering Heights review: Elordi and Robbie make it steamy, but this adaptation never truly burns!

Here's how!

The lyricism of O' Romeo

With Bhardwaj, that may not come as a surprise. As a music composer first and foremost, he has always insisted that music came to him before cinema did, and you can feel that instinct woven into O' Romeo. The film doesn’t just use songs for its characters, but originates them through it. The characters feel composed rather than merely written. Ustara, for instance, isn’t simply volatile; he’s restless in rhythm. There’s a manic cadence to him. When he unleashes violence inside a theatre while “Kaante Nahi Katte” blares, it isn’t just a stylistic flourish. The killings are staged almost like choreography cuts landing on beats, movements framed with intention. And each time he unleashes this side of him, his brutality feels orchestrated, as though he’s conducting his own symphony of chaos.

Opposite him stands Afsha, softer in presence but equally shaped by music. If Ustara burns, she aches. There’s heartbreak stitched into her silences. Her tragedy isn’t loud but it lingers. In many ways, she mirrors a version of Ustara that existed before he crossed the line that changed him forever. Hence their love story isn’t merely about attraction; it’s about longing for innocence that has already been lost. Even Jalal, the antagonist, is a performer driven by ego, a matador who must dominate the arena or destroy it. And then there’s Inspector Pathare (standout performance by Rahul Deshpande) who sings as he chases criminals, adding an almost surreal flourish to the narrative. 

Even if the film feels less like a Vishal Bhardwaj film, it stands on being true to being composed by him. But if Bhardwaj internalises music, Nambiar externalises it.

The sonic survival of Tu Yaa Main

Famous for creatively injecting a rehashed, modern spin on a classic track long before Aditya Dhar and Shashwat Sachdeva made it a trend in Dhurandhar, Nambiar used “Hawa Hawai” over a high-octane action sequence in Shaitan, making it clear that he understands the pulse of rhythm and more importantly, how to subvert it when needed. Alongwith Parteek Rajagopal, Tu Yaa Mainfeels like a natural extension of that instinct. It understands that this generation experiences life like a Reel - in quick cuts, heightened emotions and background scores for everything. The film leans into that energy and then cleverly subverts it. The soundtrack album is infectious but it’s the background score and sound design that truly shapes the experience.

With music lacing every siatuation, once the story shifts into full survival mode, dialogue fades and sound takes over. Water ripples feel louder, the scrape of claws against tile becomes unbearable, even breathing feels intrusive and the theatre transforms into a shared anxiety chamber. And yet, in classic Nambiar fashion, just when tension peaks, he finds room to play. When the crocodile pauses apparently to sleep and rest, the film sneaks in a song, as if to remind us that even in terror, there’s performance. It’s playful and nerve-wracking at the same time.

As the films diverge in fascinating ways, Bhardwaj’s lens turns inward as his characters battle guilt, ego, trauma - the inner demons that erode them from within while Nambiar’s lens looks outward as his film asks what commitment really means in an age where love ignites at Reel-speed but fades just as quickly. Yet they both become about survival that demands more than just chemistry! And that’s perhaps why both films leave something with you. One finds lyricism in violence. The other finds poetry in panic. One is steeped in tragedy and Shakespearean undertones; the other feels like a Gen-Z fever dream colliding with a survival thriller. Different textures and tones but both beating with a distinctly musical heart.

In the end, whether it’s gang wars or crocodiles, both Tu Yaa Main and O' Romeo circle back to the same truth - love, in any era, is rarely soft. It is something you survive, sometimes by rhythm, sometimes by instinct. And occasionally, by holding your breath until the danger passes!

Tu Yaa Main and O' Romeo are currently running in theatres near you!

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