Mere Husband Ki Biwi Movie Review: Arjun Kapoor’s trope-filled love triangle circles around in exhaustion

These are desperate times. Bollywood is going through a churning. Anything that comes remotely closer to it, ends up getting lost in the labyrinth of washed-up ideas and sloppy execution. It seems like no one is trying to break the mundanity anymore and take us into a world of wonder. This wasn’t the case just some years ago, when Arjun Kapoor would be suitably delightful, starring in the breezy rom-com 2 States (2014). Then, Mudassar Aziz too was in the lively wedding-gone-wrong comedy Happy Bhag Jayegi (2016). His last film, Khel Khel Mein was still inventive and entertaining even though it was a remake of an Italian film. With his latest, Mere Husband Ki Biwi, the director takes a step back.

It isn’t difficult to know where it all goes wrong. Beginning with a routine, Piyush Mishra voiceover, its rhythm feels off from the get-go. When the protagonist Ankur Chadha (Arjun) is introduced, it is done without any fizz. He has a nightmare of his ex-wife, Prableen Dhillon (Bhumi Pednekar) with loud, horror film-like music and he wakes up with a start. His trauma is fresh and his friend Riyan Qureshi (Harsh Gujral) wants to eradicate it. Ankur’s sadness subsides when he meets Antara Khanna (Rakul Preet Singh), his college-crush. Acting up on Riyan’s advice, Ankur joins her paragliding lessons in Rishikesh, jumping from a cliff with her on the very first day. Naturally, it isn’t a great experience, both for Ankur and us, for how amateurishly it is filmed. Up in the air, he is scared to death, but we don’t feel it. When they land, he throws up and Antara laughs in admiration. Clearly, we don’t feel it even now. A song begins then and two minutes later, they have already fallen in love. Still, nothing. Everything feels choppily put together with more focus on telling an uneventful story than creating an experience.

Starring: Arjun Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar, Rakul Preet Singh, Harsh Gujral, Dino Morea and Shakti Kapoor

Directed by: Mudassar Aziz

Yet, Mudassar pens some of the emotional portions with more clarity and control. Ankur’s past marriage with Prableen and everything that went wrong carries a lot of weight, bringing the film back together. They are a couple who loved each other crazy but couldn’t stand the everyday hassle of marriage life. She works at a small TV channel as an on-ground reporter much to the irritation of Ankur, who confronts her at one point for not getting involved in the kitty party hosted by his mother. There are clear signs of his inherent sexist nature in the way he looks down upon her for continuing to work after getting pregnant. Yet, Mudassar has all his sympathy for Ankur and ends up demonising Prableen. We only see how the broken marriage affected him and keeps iterating she was the problem when circumstances state otherwise.

This leads to a rampant dehumanization of Prableen, who is shown only as a jealous ex-wife still running after Ankur who has now moved on. In the second half, the film goes on reducing the identities of its female characters to just chasing the man, as they devise plans to win him. Ankur seldom takes any blame; it is always either of the two who are in the wrong. Arjun tries to salvage its many flaws but is not compelling enough to leave an impact. He seems to have a natural demeanour to display the under-confidence of the protagonist but the writing is too confused to let him seize the moments. Even Bhumi is trapped into being a downright villain. She sprawls her Punjabi accent only when it is convenient and is made to be a ‘crazy woman’ when there are zero signs of that either in her performance or in the script. Rakul largely stays subservient to the story, seldom adding any flair.

Making a comedy is serious business. Casting stand-up comedian Harsh Gujral in a prominent role just to mint dull gags can’t be the only solution. What’s comic timing without a joke? What is a joke? For Mudassar, it is making Harsh randomly give analogies of Israel’s occupation of Palestine to describe actions of a character, not once but twice. Or bring up the Russia-Ukraine war in a punchline. For Mudassar, everything is up for laughter. Desperate times call for desperate measures.