Mr & Mrs Mahi
Starring Janhvi Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao
Directed by Sharan Sharma
Mr & Mrs Mahi is bright and revealing in that rare kind of way where the cinematic emotions never drown the underlining lifelike wisdom.
At one point, Kumud Mishra asks his screen-wife Zarina Wahab if she got a particular line from the WhatsApp.
“No, I got it from life,” she replies with a smile.
Sweeping the WhatsApp generation off its collective feet Mr & Mrs Mahi takes the audience into a traditional Basu Chatterjee romcom and emerges from the joyride with a film that is original and endearing.
Mr & Mrs Mahi starts off as a marriage between two cricket lovers who discover the big secret about one another on their wedding night. The early scenes sparkle with a coltish synergy. Nothing that Mr Mahi says to his Missus is particularly smart , and that’s the perfect pitch for this couple.
Janhvi Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao, have never been in better form.
Although one of the two protagonists is a loser, director Sharan Sharma’s second film for Karan Johar is a winner all the way. In what is possibly one of the bravest most nakedly unheroic roles written for a male actor , Rajkummar Rao shines as Mahendra, a.k.a Mahi, an abused son of a spots shop owner(the unerringly dependable Kumud Mishra).
Mahi once wanted to be a cricketer. He is now resigned to his life as an apprentice in his father’s store. He is a simmering cauldron of resentment waiting to explode.
Marriage changes everything for Mahi, including his destiny. The girl chosen to marry Mahi is Mahima, a.k.a Mahi. And guess what! She too is a cricket enthusiast. Whether you are one or not, this film will have you cheering for these two ordinary lives intertwined by that obsolete institution known as marriage.
Mr & Mrs Mahi starts off as a marriage between two cricket lovers who discover the big secret about one another on their wedding night. The early scenes sparkle with a coltish synergy. Nothing that Mr Mahi says to his Missus is particularly smart , and that’s the perfect pitch for this couple.
Good actors don’t need a wide platform to prove their mettle.The same goes for stories that connect with us not for their larger-than-life design, but for their proclivity to peep into life’s harshest truths without getting overly grim in tone.
