Mere Husband Ki Biwi, NEEK, Companion: Reviews This Week

Mere Husband Ki Biwi Is The Poor(ly Written) Cousin Of Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar

Mere Husband Ki Biwi is a generic Hindi film, made for predominantly North Indian audiences obsessed with anything remotely Bollywood. And they make no effort to hide this aspect, Swetha Ramakrishnan reviews.

Dir: Mudassir Aziz

Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar, Rakul Preet Singh, Harsh Gujral

Playing in: Theatres

REPEAT AFTER ME: quirky film titles do not equate to a good comedy film; an interestingly different airport climax scene does not justify the rest of the film’s utter lack of originality. These were the first two thoughts that popped into my head after watching Arjun Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar and Rakul Preet Singh’s latest film Mere Husband Ki Biwi . I have to admit, the general (lack of) buzz around the film — barring a rehash of a popular old song that’s gone viral — got me predicting that I was going to dedicate 2.5 hours of my day to watch a doomed film, and I would have to fight to stay awake. I can admit that I was wrong. Mere Husband Ki Biwi is not atrocious. It’s just plain ol’ mid.

Here’s another surprising revelation I had. Arjun Kapoor…isn’t a bad actor? Dude has screen presence and can pull off comedy. I actually found myself laughing out loud at a few scenes in the film, which I don’t think anyone expected. Just before the climax began, a few people in the theatre I was in started to walk away having signed off on the film. But as soon as the airport scene began, they paused, standing at the door of the theatre, and watched the entire climax play out. Full marks to Mudassir Aziz and team for having at least one scene in the film that sparked intrigue, because the rest of it was honestly boring and done to death.

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Companion: When Artificial Intelligence Is The Only Intelligence

We often use the term 'human' as a moral antithesis to beasts and machines, but Companion is one of the few modern fables that shows how in fact ‘human’ might have been the derogatory state all along, writes Rahul Desai .

Dir: Drew Hancock

Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Megan Suri, Lukas Gage

Playing in: Theatres

EARLY ON in Drew Hancock’s Companion , two young women named Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Kat (Megan Suri) have a prickly moment on a boozy night. When Iris asks why Kat — a close friend of Iris’ new lover Josh (Jack Quaid) — doesn’t like her, a tipsy Kat says she just doesn’t like the ‘idea’ of her. “You make me feel replaceable,” she continues. The conceit of this confession is two-pronged. Iris is deeply in love with her new boyfriend Josh, but Kat is in an abusive relationship with a controlling Russian man; the obvious implication is that Kat is bitter.

But the real implication emerges a scene or two later, when the film reveals that Iris (“Siri” when spelt backwards) is actually a companion robot. Up until then, it speaks volumes that the average male viewer may not be able to tell. Iris loves Josh so much that she is subservient to him — she wants to please him by hanging out with his friends on a weekend getaway, she craves to see him smile, and sex for them is basically Josh grunting and rolling over to sleep. It’s all too familiar. So Kat saying she feels "replaceable" by Iris is the film admitting that — in a world captured by the male gaze — a woman robot is no different from a woman.

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Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam: A Fun Rom-Com That Could Have Been Better

What brings Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam down is the lack of a compelling conceit. It slowly devolves into an idiot plot where if people could just talk, things would be over in no time, Aditya Shrikrishna reviews.

Dir: Dhanush

Cast: Pavish, Anikha Surendran, Priya Prakash Varrier, Matthew Thomas, Venkatesh Menon

Playing in: Theatres

THE DHANUSH SIGNATURE is all over Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam (NEEK). Usually one would find the writer and director’s stamp in their film but, with NEEK , it is a little extra. As an actor and a star, it is not just Dhanush’s artistic preoccupations that show up on the screen but also his favourite themes and persona, pet peeves and theories along with the usual homages that follow every big Tamil star. The writing on the wall is stark because we don’t see Dhanush on screen, but we see it in the writing, we hear it in the sound, we identify it in the intonations, and we get all the references. As people pointed out, the main lead is named Prabhu (Dhanush’s birth name), and he is a chef (what Dhanush wanted to become). In the final scene, just before the writer-director credits appear, Rajesh (a fun Mathew Thomas) is holding a ukulele and playing 'Rowdy Baby' .

NEEK has a lot going for it, especially in the first half. It begins like a pre-2014 Dhanush romantic film or any Tamil romantic film, a soup boy—Pavish as Prabhu—with alcohol in hand, singing about love failure. But his parents soon force him to pursue an arranged marriage. That is when he meets Preethi (Priya Prakash Varrier), his school friend. They begin talking, and most of the film is him telling Preethi about his past relationship and the circumstances of its end. The film does deliver on its promise of a usual love story—it has all the ingredients in the right measure: a solid meet-cute, lovable and flawed good-looking people, hostile behaviour from at least one parent, a wedding and a climax at the airport.

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