It's the curse of fictional cinematic characters — their very existence is a Groundhog Day-esque time loop. In their fabricated realities, they're doomed to hit the same romantic beats and suffer the same tragic deaths again and again and again.
But what if a film's protagonist just quit? Just straight up decided to keep running and leave the film and enter the real world?
That's the high concept at the core of Indian writer, director and star Rajat Kapoor's latest film, RK/RKAY. Not straying far from his reality, Kapoor plays RK, a writer/director/actor making a movie that's a tribute to hard-boiled '60s cinema. In said film, he portrays the mustachioed leading man, Mahboob, who meets a calamitous end.
But during the editing process, Mahboob disappears. He's suddenly nowhere to be found on any of the footage. Not content with his fate, Mahboob ran away to the real world. Soon enough, RK finds him and must try to convince Mahboob he's a fictional creation who needs to return to the celluloid world.
While that might seem like a sort of one-note story, RK/RKAY squeezes a lot of fun out of the scenario. There are enough clever twists to the fish-out-of-water situation with a fictional character being in reality that the comedic beats stay fresh, and the contrast between Mahboob's zeal for life and RK's distant, dour artist persona makes for an engaging dramatic parallel. It's a movie packed with ideas about creation, escapism and existentialism without ever seeming heavy. ♦
Streaming online at spokanefilmfestival.org
