BOTTOM LINE
A Decent Remake, Even if Unnecessary
PLATFORM
Zee5
Run Time
1 hour and 47 minutes.
What Is the Film Mrs About?
Richa is a spirited girl and a dance enthusiast who gets hitched to Diwakar, a match fixed by her parents. While Richa and Diwakar share a lovey-dovey relationship initially, the dreariness gradually sets in. She loses herself in the mundanity of running the household, endlessly serving the needs of the men. Richa needs to make hard decisions when her situation gets out of hand.
Performances
Sanya Malhotra had her task cut out while stepping into the shoes of Nimisha Sajayan but does well to give a new spin to the role and convey a married woman’s angst. Nishant Dahiya holds his own playing the average, unlikeable husband of the Indian household, while it’s Kanwaljit Singh who’s more effective as the stoic patriarch. Mrinal Kulkarni too leaves her imprint in a brief part.
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Analysis
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All odds are stacked against remakes in Indian cinema now; it’s hard to find takers for a story to be retold in another language anymore (even if it features A listers/popular names in its lineup). A stat by a popular film portal reveals that over 23 out of 25 Hindi remakes released recently, have been box office drubbings. It doesn’t surprise that another remake, Mrs, has taken the OTT route.
For the unversed, Mrs is the official remake of the massive OTT hit in Malayalam during the COVID-19 lockdown – The Great Indian Kitchen. After a long run at the festival circuit, Mrs now makes its digital debut. The film is a rather faithful retelling of the original that preserves its restless feministic spirit, thanks to a capable cast and an assured storyteller – Arati Kadav.
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The Great Indian Kitchen was a local story with a universal appeal that struck a chord with its raw appeal and intensity while highlighting an educated woman’s voicelessness in a marriage – specifically casting light on her confinement in a kitchen. In its Hindi remake, the essence of the original remains untarnished, however, with a few basic tweaks to adapt to a wider milieu.
Richa is introduced as the spunky girl with high hopes from an arranged marriage who doesn’t even get back minimum dignity at her in-law’s place. Through its unflinching portrayal of mundanity – addressing misogyny within the house, aspects like marital rape – the film builds its tension organically, where she is reduced to a robot of a particular gender designed to execute tasks.
Mrs does get its larger picture right but it comes at a cost – the loss of nuance, the subtle hint of sanitisation and the absence of rootedness. Say, the preference for a ‘grindstone’ over a ‘mixer grinder’, ‘washing a dhoti by hand’ instead of a ‘washing machine’ are so quintessentially South Indian that a mere recreation of the scene for a Hindi audience doesn’t do justice in capturing its larger meaning.
A film really needs to set itself in a backdrop and establish it well to ensure relatability. The Great Indian Kitchen had a clear agenda of catering to a hyperlocal audience, reflecting their ethos, striking a fine balance between form and substance. Mrs lacks that focus – it just wants to borrow a story from an OTT release that has worked in another language and present it yet again on OTT.
Regardless of Sanya Malhotra’s bravura performance, apt casting and a grander scale (which turns out to be a disadvantage), the necessity behind ‘mere recreation’ of a film keeps popping up in your head. It’s easier to dub the original in Hindi and believe that audiences would get it (using subtitles). Instead of ‘why a remake’, the question could be ‘what different can you do with a remake.’
Music and Other Departments?
Faizan Hussain’s Humsafar is the most impactful song of the lot and has a greater chance of staying with you, long after the film. The background score is generally decent and prefers to be understated. Pratham Mehta’s cinematography is overly sophisticated and peppy for a film like Mrs, while the editing could’ve been more leisurely and given better scope for the bubble to burst.
Highlights?
Performances of Sanya Malhotra, Kanwaljit Singh
Preserves the spirit of the original to a fair extent
Drawbacks?
Lacks rootedness/nuance in storytelling
Mere focus on recreation of the original
Doesn’t have the raw intensity we expect from it
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes, it’s alright
Will You Recommend It?
Only if you don’t want to Malayalam original and prefer it with familiar faces in Hindi
Mrs OTT Movie Review by M9
