Story: Sanskrit teacher Shrirenu Tripathi (R Madhavan) is unhappily single at 42. He nearly loses hope of settling down until he is introduced to 32-year-old Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a pretty girl proficient in French. He lives in Jamshedpur; she in Kolkata. Despite their age gap, contrasting personality and mindset, they hit it off. An arranged marriage evolving into love seems likely but there’s more to their story than meets the eye.
Review: While he’s over the moon to have finally found a companion who loves him just as deeply, a nagging fear still lingers. Why would someone as beautiful, young, and accomplished as Madhu fall for someone like him? What could she possibly see in him? His fear turns into reality when ahead of their marriage, he discovers the two have a past.
The movie begins on a promising note. A single man in his 40’s, believing in old school romance is ashamed of being a virgin because society feels so. For the modern world, he is abnormal, an awkward loser, who needs to do something about his situation because there’s no way he can be happy. Madhu on the contrary, is liberal and wonders why anyone would expect women to be virgins today. Their match feels doomed from the beginning until they find a common ground amid the chaos and moral conflict.
Director Vivek Soni’s film begins with great potential as it promises to touch upon relevant topics but digresses eventually. From the taboo around single men in their 40’s, the story shifts into a commentary on patriarchy, awfully similar to Dharma’s very own Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Why would the production house and its subsidiary make similar films? This even has the same Bengali liberal tokenism. Woke vs customs and tradition, male honour vs equality. The film crashes into a confused mess, squandering the potential it initially shows. A massive Rocky Aur Rani hangover derails this love story completely as it lets go of its own identity. The two halves of the film don’t flow well together.
Men should not judge women when they are equally involved, fair point. But is promiscuous the same as progressive? Is being single the same as being unhappy today? Age-shaming is real. The film fails to delve deeper into issues that you expect the story to address.
The rain scenes are shot beautifully. The actors are sincere, but their character arcs offer little scope to showcase their full acting potential.Both R Madhavan and Fatima are lovely as an unlikley couple but are underutilised as other subplots take over. Overall, this is not the mature, nuanced age-gap love story one would expect. Despite its promise, the film turns out to be a major missed opportunity.
