Never Grow Up:
In the Eighties, when melodrama was a popular movie genre, there was a spate of films, usually remakes of Telugu films, with Jeetendra starring in most of them, in which the top leading ladies of the time were seen fighting over him. Mudassar Aziz’s putative romcom, Mere Husband Ki Biwi, belongs, in spirit, to that era.
The title tries too hard to be cute. There is token updating — the women, Prabhleen (Bhumi Pednekar) and Antara (Rakul Preet Singh), wear contemporary outfits and have trendy careers. The former is a TV reporter, the latter a specialist in sports medicine. The guy they both set their hearts on is Ankur (Arjun Kapoor), who works with his father (Shakti Kapoor’s) real estate brokerage, but is mostly seen hanging out with his friend Rehan (Harsh Gujral), who has the best lines of the lot.
When the film opens, Ankur is waking up from horror movie-like nightmares about Prabhleen, his ex-wife. She is a volatile woman, prone to drinking and tantrums, and the marriage ended in a divorce. After spending five years moping, he runs into his school crush, Antara, a sporty kind, who is into hang gliding and river rafting, while he does nothing more strenuous than reaching out to a glass of booze. He confesses his past to Antara—which is when the earlier love story unfolds in flashbacks—and she, for some inexplicable reason, agrees to marry him.
Then Prabhleen reappears after some amnesia drama, and wants Ankur back. In a contrivance that only a silly Hindi movie could muster (Aziz shares writing credits with producer Vashu Bhagnani), Antara invites Prabhleen, her whole family and even a supposed boyfriend (Aditya Seal) to her wedding in Scotland. She is sure that Ankur will not let her down, even though he dilly dallies between the two sparring women. Prabhleen, in full psycho mode, tries every trick to break up the relationship.
Divorce is not looked at closely in our films, so it is actually refreshing to see it being tackled without too much fuss and bother. Even Antara’s parents (Kanwaljeet Singh, Anita Raj) are portrayed as divorcees, who seem to get along fine. Dino Morea turns up in a cameo as her cool brother in a man bun.
Mudassar Aziz has decent comedies like Happy Bhaag Jaayegi and Khel Khel Mein to his credit; unfortunately though, this film is neither funny nor dramatic enough to be engaging. The characters just seem like spoilt rich types with the emotional depth of invertebrates. Bhumi Pednekar, sneering, glowering and vamping it up at full volume, overacts to make up for the shortcomings of her costars, who have considerable difficulties in that department.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
