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Release
date:
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May 18, 2018
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Director:
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Harish Vyas
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Cast:
Language:
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Sanjay Mishra,
Ekavali Khanna, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Pankaj Tripathi, Brijendra Kala,
Anshuman Jha
Hindi
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Autumnal love tales
hold out the promise of yearning and hope combined. They speak either of
happiness reclaimed and second chances claimed or of opportunities forever
lost. Writer-director Harish Vyas’ Angrezi
Mein Kehte Hain is one such. Produced by the National Film Development
Corporation and Drumroll Pictures, it is the story of a middle-aged man who has
taken his wife for granted through almost a quarter century of marriage but
realises her worth when the possibility of losing her looms large.
Sanjay Mishra plays
the silver-haired Varanasi-based post-office employee, Yashwant Batra, who has
shared his life and home for 24 years with his accommodating spouse Kiran
(Ekavali Khanna). The couple has a college-going daughter, Preeti (Shivani
Raghuvanshi), who is secretly involved with the local boy Jugnu (Anshuman Jha).
We have all seen
couples like Yashwant and Kiran, the sort who seem to be together out of habit
more than anything else, whose bond is sustained by custom and tolerance not affection
or attraction. In terms of thematic plausibility then, Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain is initially on solid ground. However, it stumbles after a
while, because the screenplay runs out of imagination and is unable to take the
story forward with conviction, depth or gravitas.
Firstly, it wants us to see that
below his rough façade, Yashwant fosters a great love for Kiran after all. This
claim is hard to swallow though considering that his behaviour towards her
through the first half is not merely undemonstrative, it is outright selfish.
His attitude goes beyond the
social conditioning that leads him to tell Preeti: “She (Kiran) manages the
house, I go to office – this is what you call a marriage.” It goes beyond the daughter’s
admonition that he does not know the difference between love and duty. In truth
he is a narrow-minded patriarch who genuinely thinks it is the natural order of
things that the entire household should revolve around him and his needs.
It is possible to buy into the
house-bound Kiran’s longing for an expression of tenderness from her boring, brusque
husband, but Yashwant’s post-interval claims of fondness for her defy
believability, unless you accept the conventional notion that habit and love
are the same thing. While this failing is largely due to weak writing, it does
not help that Mishra – who has been so remarkable so often in the past – is
unable to pull off the role.
Not only is the veteran actor miscast
here, he has zero chemistry with his heroine. He is a particularly awkward fit
in scenes in which Yashwant belatedly courts Kiran. Far from injecting poignance
or the intended humour into these passages, the writing, his acting and styling
reduce the man to a caricature.
In sharp contrast to Mishra’s
turn as Yashwant is Ekavali Khanna as Kiran. She is a knockout, an actor with a
personality so arresting that you have to wonder why on earth we see so little
of her in films. Khanna was in Sudhir Mishra’s Daas Dev last month, playing a poorly sketched character. In a
dominant role in Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain,
she steals the show from right under
the nose of the film’s more famous leading man.
When Kiran (in lovely cotton
saris, I must add) is not around to overshadow him, the strong-willed Preeti
does. The girl’s refusal to settle for a husband like her Dad is
unapologetically articulated, a refreshing change from the dutiful tone good
children compulsorily adopt towards the worst of parents in orthodox Bollywood.
Her disgust for his self-centredness co-exists with love for him, whether
instinctive or in recognition of his better qualities, far more credibly than the
characterisation of Yashwant.
Shivani Raghuvanshi’s natural
performance as the firebrand Preeti lives up to the expectations raised by her
brilliance in 2015’s Titli. And
Brijendra Kala as Jugnu’s father is fun to watch. Pankaj Tripathi, usually a
critic’s delight, is wasted in a clumsily written satellite role, as a devoted
husband called Firoz Khan nursing his unwell wife.
Although the insertion of songs
in the narrative is not always smooth, the pleasantness of Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain’s soundtrack compensates for this
abruptness. It is a joy to hear Shaan’s distinctive voice after such a long
time, partnered by the talented Vaishali Mhade and Pravin Kunwar in the sweet romantic
track Meri ankhein composed by Kunwar.
Another star singer, Mohit Chauhan, toplines Oni-Adil’s melodic Tera hua main jab se with its
introspective lyrics by Pratibha Tiku. The album features an eclectic mix of numbers,
all hummable, ranging from the catchy Aaj
rang hai, which is Oni-Adil’s take on a traditional Amir Khusro qawwali, to a semi-classical piece and one wedding song.
Three numbers reportedly mark a return to films of the lyricist Yogesh whose past credits include the
iconic Anand, Chhoti Si Baat and Baton
Baton Mein. Yogesh writes in Meri
ankhein: “Mere khayalo ke aasmaan par
tum hi toh chhaaye ho / mere jivan
mein leke bahaare tum hi toh aaye ho / main
sach kahu toh tum jaan ban kar mujh mein samaaye ho.” (Roughly: My mind is filled with thoughts of you / you have
ushered a spring into my existence / truth be told, you are the life that
resides within my being.)
These earnest
lyrics, the soothing musical score and two cracking women are betrayed by the tepid
writing of Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain’s second
half, belying the bunch of international festival awards listed in its trailer.
The film derives its title from the song Angrezi
mein kehte hain ki I love you in the Parveen Babi-Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Khud-Daar (1982), reminding us, as the
strapline on the poster puts it, that you should “just say it!” The problem
with Harish Vyas’ film is that though the hero does say it, he does not
convince us that he feels it at all.
Rating
(out of five stars): *1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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108 minutes 30 seconds
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A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: National Film Development Corporation
