At a time when films and filmmakers increasingly compete with content creators, Early Days arrives at an interesting moment. It is a film about a young couple, Preeti (Manasi Kaushik) and Samrat (Sarthak Sharma), trying to make a life in Bombay, but also about the conditions under which that life is lived — and made visible. 

Directed by Priyankar Patra, the film, which premiered at the Red Sea International Film Festival last year, follows the couple as they navigate the familiar strategy of urban survival: both have jobs, every expense is accounted for, money has to be sent home, and there is little room for error or indulgence. Yet what they are trying to build is not simply a life they can survive, but one they can live and, perhaps, enjoy. How does one make space for that when there is no financial cushion, no family to fall back on, and the city demands so much simply to remain in it? It is here that Early Days makes its most contemporary turn, when the couple finds itself drawn into an almost Black Mirror-esque proposition: if life is increasingly difficult to live, perhaps it can at least be put online. Perhaps some brand out there watching this happy-go-lucky, young couple finding themselves in the city would be willing to spare a few bucks (or some rugs!) to “collaborate.” 

Preeti is the first to fold and embrace. She begins to imagine not merely a presence online, but a future built around it, one that can be planned, curated, and, crucially, monetized. Samrat is hesitant but complies. A long saga of shooting reels, making and remaking takes, adjusting with jobs, and reaching out to brands commences. These established character types make their trajectories and responses increasingly predictable as the narrative progresses. Rather than complicating these initial impressions, the characters settle into fairly predetermined roles within the narrative. Over time, arguments take place, and the pressure to produce more content looms larger over their lives; the couple inches closer to a breaking point. 

Early Days does not add a radically new commentary to the existing conversation around the creator economy, nor does it offer a particularly unfamiliar critique of the ways in which social media turns everyday life into content. What it does, however, is treat its characters with empathy. The film approaches problems that, on the surface, might appear superficial with a certain sensitivity. Early Days does not mock their aspirations, nor does it treat their desire for a better life as inherently frivolous. Instead, it allows us to sit with the contradictions of these desires. 

As the influencers’ lives take over, their wishlist comes to life in the form of paintings, rugs, flower pots, and other small objects that make for a perfect corner. Preeti is constantly thinking about what needs to be added, making lists, keeping track of trends, and imagining how the space — and by extension, their lives — should look. She is not simply decorating for the camera; she seems to genuinely want the life curated on video. Samrat, meanwhile, remains a close witness to these changes. He is happy when things begin to improve, particularly when money starts coming in, but there is always a hesitation in his response, a sense that he is not entirely convinced by what they are becoming.

The film’s hand-held footage, oscillating between a voyeuristic gaze and something almost observational, brings Early Days remarkably close to the texture of lived reality. The frequent close-ups cross the usual distance between viewer and subject, placing us inside the couple’s bedroom and making us witnesses to moments that feel almost too intimate to be observed: their arguments, silences, tenderness and everyday negotiations when shooting takes place. There is something deliberately uncomfortable about this proximity. 

This intimacy is reinforced by the film’s washed-out color palette. Even moments of relative comfort or happiness remain undercut by a faint sense of impending collapse, as though pleasure itself cannot quite escape the knowledge of what might come next. Perhaps this is also because of the city the film inhabits: Bombay is rendered not as the luminous city of possibility, but as a place where possibility is constantly shadowed by uncertainty. And yet, whenever a sudden flush of color breaks through this muted world, specifically in their reels, the effect is striking.

Sarthak and Manasi are stellar, bringing an ease and honesty to their characters. There is something deeply human about their performances. They bicker, make up, grow distant, worry about money and imagine different futures, and it is this ordinariness that makes them compelling to watch. 

Early Days seems to deliberately withhold the comfort of knowing where the performance ends and the truth begins. In that sense, its most interesting theme is not simply about the creator economy, but about the strange conditions of contemporary spectatorship itself: we are so accustomed to watching people manufacture versions of their lives that we begin to wonder whether authenticity was ever the point.

Review Courtesy of Anjani Chadha

Feature Image Credit to For Films