Mere Husband Ki Biwi movie review: Arjun Kapoor makes himself heard in this loud, drawn-out dramedy

Rakul Preet Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar in ‘Mere Husband Ki Biwi’ 

Love and war come in all shapes and sizes. This week they take the shape of a circle in the hands of Muddassar Aziz. The writer-director knows more than a thing or two about finding mirth in the geometry of mush. From Happy Bhag Jayegi and Pati Patni Aur Woh to Khel Khel Mein, he has been able to repackage tried and tested Bollywood formulae of the 1990s for an average audience that grew up on the chhola bhatura version of Bollywood romance: flaky, oversized and spicy that can choke any grease trap.

Muddassar pretends to cook a healthier version of the recipe to bring in a crowd that has heard phrases like ‘male gaze’ and ‘patriarchal lens’ but still swears by David Dhawan’s comedies. His attempts result in a few more layers, a gasp of fresh air perhaps, but the inherent pretense doesn’t always go away.

In Mere Husband Ki Biwi, he tweaks the traditional, high-pitched romantic comedy template where the hero is not confused despite serenading two lovely girls. Real estate broker Ankur Chadha (Arjun Kapoor) is nursing his wounds as he has just come out of a volatile marriage with journalist Prabhleen Dhillon (Bhumi Pednekar). Even as he struggles to put the past behind him, a physiotherapist, Antara Khanna (Rakul Preet Singh). emerges from the college album to sweep him off his feet.

If Prabhleen Dhillon carries an in-your-face attitude, Antara is refined in her demeanour. Pushed by the one-liners of his friend Rehan (Harsh Gujral), Ankur attempts to write a new statement of love. Things look bright for Ankur till Prabhleen returns with retrograde amnesia to snatch him back to chaos. The premise is the same: two women desperate to win over our hero. It is just the route to reach there that is not overlaid with patriarchy. Two women who looked career-oriented just a few frames ago are now suddenly caught in a time warp to woo their man without any clear motivation. Yes, it is the same old game of seduction and jealousy. The film forwards the skewed logic that memory loss causes personality loss as well. While Prabhleen gets designated as bala (trouble), Ankur gets away with a slap on the wrist for his misdemeanours. However, if you buy the intrinsic logic, the performances and songs engage your attention.

It is the season of a new kind of casting bias where producers and their wives are pushing each other’s careers. Last week, we had Aditya Dhar and Yami Gautam join hands in Dhoom Dhaam. Here, Rakul stands up for Jackie Bhagnani in a role that reminds me of her free-spirited performance in De De Pyaar De. Bhumi is not new to playing loud characters with a shade of grey, but, once again, her performance gets one-dimensionally strident as time passes. It is the boys who have the most fun in this matrimonial mess. The camera may not be kind to Arjun from all angles, but he renders a robust performance in a role that demands a Govinda. He finds good support and energy in debutant Harsh Gujral, a stand-up comic whose one-liners help paper over the gaps. In a film about domestic strife, Mudassar intelligently brings attention to long-standing international issues like Israel and Palestine and Ukraine and Russia and, in a delicious turn of phrase, invokes ‘Allah ki Leela’ to refer to the state of affairs.

The problem is that in his bid to check all the boxes, Mudassar fails to maintain the narrative tempo. It is not just the relationships in the film that become cyclical; the screenplay also becomes a merry-go-round. The surnames prepare us for the Punjabi flavour but not for its overdose in the form of high-pitched dialogue delivery and the background score. As the gags and jokes don’t land consistently, things feel like taking a long time to reach their point in the first half, and the second half drags to reach the denouement. In fact, in the ubiquitous rush to the airport sequence, Mukesh Rishi, who makes a comeback after a long pause, repeatedly tells Shakti Kapoor to hurry up. But Shakti knows there is no David on the steering wheel!

Mere Husband Ki Biwi is currently running in theatres