New Delhi, June 19 -- Over the past month, a rumour that Rashmika Mandanna and Kriti Sanon were playing a couple in Cocktail 2 caught fire. It grew to the point that the stars were actually asked about this. It says everything about us and our cinema that the height of imagined transgressiveness in a film might be something as basic as a lesbian couple. It's even more revealing that, instead of letting the question hang and using the free publicity, the makers immediately shot it down ("We are three straight people," Mandanna told reporters). Sanon is playing an Ally, but don't take it literally.

Kunal (Shahid Kapoor) and Diya (Mandanna) are one of those annoying couples too vaguely conceived to exist outside of a Hindi film, and too fam...