App Troubles:
Yet another opposites attract film by Dharmatics and Vivek Soni, who, before the new Netflix movie Aap Jaisa Koi, had directed Meenakshi Sundareswar.
The story by Radhika Anand takes its inspiration from Judd Apatow’s comedy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but tones down the risqué elements, and aims for a syrupy tone that works up to a point, before the plot wanders off into another maze.
Shrirenu ‘Shri’ Tripathi (R. Madhavan) is a 42-year-old Sanskrit teacher, who, for reasons not quite clear (there was a curse in the past, but seriously?), is a virgin. His students make fun of him, his family keeps trying to match make and his buddy (Namit Das) serves as an agony uncle. He is the kind of friend who exists only in films and has nothing better to do than listen to and advise the protagonist – at least this one has a profession as a photographer.
He is advised to sign up for a sex chat app and is thrilled to have access to so many women, if only on the phone! Then he gets a matrimonial offer for a 32-year-old, never-married woman from Kolkata, and she turns out to be the beautiful Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a French teacher. Shri is immediately smitten and cannot believe his luck.
Madhu is outgoing and sexually experienced, a contrast to the cripplingly reserved Shri. Still, she seems to like him, and the families agree to a match. His consists of a brother Bhanu (Manish Chadhary), sister-in-law Kusum (Ayesha Raza), niece and other random relatives. Hers has parents, again random relatives for background noise and a grandmother (Beena Banerjee), whose sole purpose is to collapse at an opportune moment, as most senior citizens in movies are meant to do.
For a flimsy and “MCP” (her words) reason Shri breaks off the engagement and then spends the rest of the film moping. The film wants to be woke and pull down men who talk of “allowing” women to do what they want. The dialogue is written so that the man says something stupid and the woman can do her “who are you to judge me?” spiel. When the plot loses its focus on Shri and Madhu, it does the same war of the sexes with Bhanu and Kusum. The wife is fed up with Bhanu’s domineering ways and she gets a chance to make a where-has-love-gone speech too; and declare that 50 is the new 40.
All the while, the many characters decked up in handloom finery stand around listening to other people’s laundry being aired in public.
Aap Jaisa Koi, could have examined dating and sexual mores of the day—the ones who dare, the ones who cower– and make it funny too. This film is as dour as its leading man and as weird as the leading lady whose one French word uttered is “epoustouflant” (breathtaking).
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
