By Neha Bora
‘Pati, Patni aur Woh’ is the story of one Chintu/Abhinav Tyagi and Guddi/Vedika Tripathi directed by Mudassar Aziz. Chintu is from Kanpur and by his own declaration the haggard middle-class male, who has always followed the rules and listened to his father, Hitler Tyagi and gotten to become an ‘IITian’ and a government officer in the PWD. Guddi Tyagi is a less prolific version of Tanuja Trivedi who works as a Physics teacher in a coaching institute, and does all the household chores too.
They have an arranged marriage and as three years pass by, the love in their marriage although solidly intact becomes routine. Chintu Tyagi, is his boredom, decides to have an affair with the Delhi ki ‘bahaar’ Tapasya Singh( Ananya Pandey). He lies to her about Vedika having an affair, when she finds out about his marriage.
The entire length of the movie, then is about the chaos that ensues later and the consequences of using lies to get romantically involved with two women who aren’t ‘caricature-ishly’ stupid (like in the lazy custom of a lot of entertainment films.)
The film losses its thread in between the chaos at certain times and becomes irritatingly simplistic in its plot twists and jokes, but together it works fine for an audience that was made to watch ‘Marjaavaan’ recently.
The movie is being called a contemporary version of the original 1978 B.R. Chopra film. The film although, may be the contemporary version of the original but that is not to say it is to be bereft of its sexism and hypocrisy.
The film tries to be empowering and a just justification of the modern woman, but one need only look at the now edited but still patronizing speech of Kartik Aaryan delivers in the film trailer, to understand that it falls short by a couple of miles. It might be safe to say that illogical and lazy films like ‘Pagalpanti’ or ‘Houseful 4’ are facing good competition from films like ‘Tanu weds Manu’ and ‘Badhai Ho’ when it comes to entertainment, but ‘Pati Patni Aur Who’ is about an average film. It belongs to the category of films whose heroine says ‘Pati-vrta out of fashion ho gaya hai, zamaana kultaon ka hain’ while putting on shades as her hair blows away in the wind.
But, it is also from the category of films whose hero gives long speeches about how feminism has ruined their joy and peace, expecting them to be careful and responsible of their behaviors. We have seen Kartik Aryan do this before and he does it in his latest film too.
The dialogues are really well written with Aparshakti Khurana being the master of them. Dialogues like “yahaan spasht bahumat se sarkaar ban-ne jaa rahi hai aur aap se ek baaghi gathbandhan nahi bhulaya jaa raha hai” in a reprimand best friend Rizvi (Aparshakti) makes to Chintu (Kartik) when he gets anxious about en ex-girlfriend on the day of his wedding.
Kartik Aryan is cast in films that need a ‘cute’ face playing a character that would have been deeply criticized by someone like Akshay Kumar (the criticism wouldn’t be unfounded of course). He has been delivering testosterone filled inappropriate speeches reeking of male privilege since ‘Pyaar ka Punchnama’ with that cute face of his and audiences have been appreciating him. Bhumi Pednekar is average in her usual stern flat-toned dialogues.
Her character has a lot of spunk, and is the most sorted out of all the characters in the film. She plays it well, having already played the same character in Bala or Sonchiraiya or others. Ananya Pandey, the new star kid on the screen, played the lovable, beautiful, fashionable diva that most actors with famous surnames do. Aparshakti Khurana was beautiful and effortless as he has always been so far, crying out to be used for more than the more interesting, more humorous, much more concerned best friend of the protagonist.
The film sits well amidst the small town stories that have become an immensely popular genre in itself. Uttar Pradesh is invoked, time an again and contrasted against the busy Delhi and Lucknow cities to endearing degree. The parents of the couple who are seasoned actors like Rajesh Sharma, the beautiful Navni Parihar and K.K. Raina have all been seen together before and worked wonders. They are entertaining in the film too.
This film does not produce any great music, and one only ever remembers ‘Dheeme Dheeme’ and ‘Ankhiyon se goli maare’ number, both of which are remakes. Filmi Files is a website which offers news, views and even the inside stories from the glamour world be it Bollywood or Hollywood, for those who love the cinema.
I give this film 3/5.
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