Mr. Singh Mrs. Mehta: A Solid Bore

Rating: 1.5 out of 5*

Cast: Prashant Narayanan, Aruna Shields, Lucky Hassan and Naved Aslam

Director: Pravesh Bhardwaj

Aditya Mehta (Prashant Narayanan) is an artist who is more shown painting his wife’s toenails than the colours of the canvas. His wife Sakhi Mehta (Lucy Hassan) is shown to be having an extramarital affair with Karan Singh (Naved Aslam). Now, Karan’s wife Neera Singh (Aruna Shields) discovers that her husband is cheating on her and she ends up seeking solace in Aditya’s company. They get drawn together by shame and anger as they find more comfort in each other’s friendship. But despite bonding well, they try not to have a relationship with each other.

One fails to understand that though the adultery is shown openly obvious since the start, why do Aditya and Neera never try to confront their respective partners over it? Trying to make the film more provocative widespread nudity has been incorporated on the pretext that overcome his block by painting nude female form ala Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Now funnily, Neera is shown to be shying away from posing nude for the painting that Aditya wants to do, despite the fact that she has been shown moving around naked in Aditya’s warehouse for big part of the film. What irritates more are the continually censored blurs that attempt to cover up her nude body. The climax is supposedly symbolic but it is too rushed that you end up feeling there some more of the film left! There is nothing wrong in making a complete art house project but at least let the film connect on some level or derive some emotion out of the viewer apart from frustration!

Debutante director Pravesh Bhardwaj takes his own sweet time to establish the growing proximity between Aditya and Neera but leaves it hurriedly towards the climax. The film’s shot in London but you don’t see much of it apart from some unflattering lanes of London. A wonderful ghazal based track by Shujaat Hussain Khan goes waste in a film like this.

Prashant Narayanan is just about okay but he has done better work before. Aruna Shields is made to expose her body more than her acting skills. Lucky Hassan is passable. Naved Aslam is fair.

The film is a plain bore with nothing good to talk about. Please avoid!

– Sampurn Wire