Daddy’s Day:
More often than not, when an actor chooses to direct, he picks a script that gives him a great part, so it’s no surprise that Boman Irani, dominates The Mehta Boys, also co-produced, co-written by him (with Alex Dinelaris).
He has a terrific introductory scene, in which, having just lost his wife, Shiv Mehta walks into a room full of mourners and greets them mechanically, for a moment, not even recognizing his son Amay (Avinash Tiwary). Then, without any background or context, the film goes into a contentious relationship between father and son. Amay’s sister, Anu (Puja Sarup) plays a reluctant peacemaker between the bickering men.
Amay had left his parents’ home in Navsari and moved to Mumbai, where he works at firm of architects with Sen (Siddhartha Basu) as his boss, who has heart to heart conversations with him, but also wonder why he pays him, because Amay is not living up to expectation.
There’s a co-worker, Zara (Shreya Chaudhary), with whom Amay has a maybe-maybe not romance. His problems are supposedly because of his daddy issues, but what those are is never clear. Mehta Sr. seems to be a mix of obdurate (he refuses all help) and caring (he cooks meals for Amay); eccentric, but not particularly hateful.
Shiv is due to leave for the US with his daughter, but due to a ticketing glitch, is forced to spend two days with Amay, and they behave like they are in a Neil Simon play.
In spite of the bafflingly vague script, the film still sparkles when the two actors are together on screen, and how that moment will play out is unpredictable – will they laugh together watching a comedy on TV (Laurel & Hardy, how many remember them?) or squabble for no apparent reason.
As it meanders along with Amay dealing with career, girl and father problems, the film cannot decide what it wants to be – a comedy, an emotional family drama, or just a slice of life in the city, when a freak rainshower, a blackout, a dripping ceiling or an elderly man’s possible descent into dementia can come up and bite a fellow, who was just trying to go about his life with nothing more challenging than matching tie with shirt.
It must have been tough for Avinash Tiwary to stand up to Boman Irani who unpacks his actor’s carton of eye-twinkling, dimpling, scene-stealing tricks, but he plays Amay straight and sincere and the two complement each other. And they make the viewer care for how their lives turn out. The film may have disparate elements that don’t quite fit, but there are little moments that still hold up the structure and save it from collapsing like a roof in a Mumbai storm.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
