Not Saif, Deepika and Diana heroes of 'Cocktail'

New Delhi: You can admit or ignore it, but Homi Adajania's romantic comedy Cocktail had us wondering if the heroes of the film were Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty, not Saif Ali Khan.

We all know that one of Bollywood's pet and oldest themes is the tragic love triangle - Mehboob Khan's Andaz (1949) starring Dilip Kumar, Nargis and Raj Kapoor to Milan Luthria's The Dirty Picture (2011). The common plot often revolved around two best friends who fell in love with the same girl. The heroine always loved one of them, but ended up with the one she didn't love out of a selfless act of sacrifice. Did the heroine have a choice in this matter, absolutely not! The 'other' guy would eventually die like in Nikhil Advani's Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) or find new love (in very rare cases) as in Kundan Shah's Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1993).

So when we saw Gautam Kapoor (Saif Ali Khan) being tossed between two girls: the impetuous Veronica D'Costa (Deepika Padukone) and the submissive Meera Gupta (Diana Penty) in Cocktail we thought if in fact, there has been a complete role reversal between the sexes. This wasn't the case of a 'woman-centric' film – the popular tagline given to a film with a female protagonist. This was about Veronica admitting to being a typical "rich-bi*#ch" living alone in a messy apartment with more alcohol than water. She is free-willed even though mighty spoilt, very go-with-the-flow as far as love is concerned. This was about the demure Meera (think Ajay Devgn in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam released in 1999), an epitome of tolerance and sacrifice.

This was also about the chemistry between Veronica and Meera. In a scene from the film, Veronica comes home drunk after a long night of club hopping, and Meera convinces her to have a glass of milk. Not just this, after Veronica finishes, Meera steps forward to clear the table. As the movie progresses, Veronica displays an almost boyish charm, and Meera sighs on in admiration. What love!

With the girls steering the events of the film to suit themselves, changing gears, and holding on to the reigns - whatever you may call it - the boy simply obeyed and tagged along. Who's the hero now?