‘Modern Love Mumbai’ Review: A Decent Indian Adaptation That You Can Love, Despite Its Flaws
In one of the episodes of Prime Video’s Modern Love Mumbai called I Love Thane, a recently divorced woman on a solo trip tells her best friend over a video call, “Maybe to live life through love is the only way of experiencing it.” It’s for simple, beautiful truths like these that we come to Modern Love, don’t we? I know I do, like clockwork, reading the New York Times column every Sunday, rewatching the first season of this anthology that is easily one of my favourite shows about love and the human connection. Naturally, when its Mumbai chapter was announced, I was equal parts excited and nervous. You know, exactly like when you’re in love and don’t know how it’s gonna go? The lineup of directors—Shonali Bose, Hansal Mehta, Vishal Bhardwaj, Alankrita Shrivastava, Dhruv Sehgal, and Nupur Asthana—and that incredible cast—Arshad Warsi, Chitrangda Singh, Masaba Gupta, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Pratik Gandhi, Sarika, Tanvi Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Dolly Singh, Aadar Malik, Ahsaas Channa, Danesh Razvi, Ranveer Brar and more—were strong assurances, though.
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Modern Love Mumbai has six, roughly 40-minute stories: Raat Rani (Shonali Bose), Baai (Hansal Mehta), Cutting Chai (Nupur Asthana), I Love Thane (Dhruv Sehgal), My Beautiful Wrinkles (Alankrita Shrivastava), and Mumbai Dragon (Vishal Bhardwaj). With the excitement of a blurted out confession of love, I could tell you that Mumbai Dragon and Raat Rani are easily my favourites. Baai, despite misgivings, tugged at my heartstrings and made me tear up. I Love Thane and Cutting Chai didn’t hook me in instantly, but they were relatable for several reasons and grew on me eventually. My Beautiful Wrinkles, which is actually the first episode I watched, had its own charm and appeal, but perhaps lesser than the others.
Also Read: Modern Love Season 2 Review: A Toned-Down Follow Up With Hits And Misses, And Lots Of Vicarious Romantic Fulfilment
I mean, love is never perfect, right? And Modern Love Mumbai isn’t either. Each of these films filled some tiny need void or tugged at a thread come untangled from the fabric of my emotions. But most of all, it made me smile a lot, and I guess that’s where my expectations from this franchise feel requited.
Let’s delve into each of these stories now, shall we?
Raat Rani
(Directed by Shonali Bose, starring Fatima Sana Shaikh, Bhupendra Jadawat and Dilip Prabhavalkar)
This story is a favourite for several reasons. For one, self-love stories centred around women are a weakness of mine; they give me hope because we women are often at the mercy of so many others when it comes to our happiness. Lalzari is a lively, young Kashmiri woman whose husband tells her he’s bored and leaves her, all alone in their newly set up Bandra kholi, part of a slum settlement that overlooks the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, close to Shah Rukh Khan’s Mannat. He takes the scooter and her dreams of trespassing across the Sea Link riding pillion, with him. And she’s left with a bicycle that doesn’t run straight and is a hassle to pedal up the flyover on her way to work as a cook. Initially heartbroken and struggling, Lalzari pedals on until one day she crosses a literal and a metaphorical flyover, having an epiphany about self-love.
Lalzari is a character that could’ve gone either way, or become annoying even, but Fatima Sana Sheikh imbues her with such a likeable quality and an on-point accent. I love the parallels between the lives, small joys and sorrows of Lalzari that are very subtly juxtaposed with her employers’ (a lesbian couple) own relationship issues. Lali just wants to ride her scooter across the Sea Link that won’t permit two-wheelers. Her employer is fighting for real estate on the moon, to which a flyover has not even been built! How the women mutually learn from observing each other’s strengths, even in separate socio-economic spheres, is beautifully portrayed. Bonus: It was nice to see Dilip Prabhavalkar in this hilarious role as Nazrul! Such a legend!
Baai
(Directed by Hansal Mehta, starring Tanuja, Pratik Gandhi and Ranveer Brar)
In total Gujju solidarity, I am just generally excited to see what Pratik Gandhi is up to. More so, if he is reuniting with his Scam 1992 director Hansal Mehta for a very different genre—a queer love story. The most exciting ingredient in this mix, of course, was Ranveer Brar. The chef has a magnetic screen presence and his cooking videos are irresistible even on a repeat watch. I was eager to see if it translated in his fiction debut onscreen. And then, then there was Tanuja, the titular Baai.
Though the title is a nice hint that this could be more than just a queer romance, Baai did surprise me because the queerness of Gandhi’s character Manzu is an important part of the story, but not its central theme. Baai, I felt was about family, and more importantly about dispelling the preconceived notions we have about family, seeing them as who they are really, and not thinking any less of them.
It subtly weaves in threads of socio-political parallels too, which are never jarring or underlined but subtle and poignant; from religious minorities and the fear they live with to the LGBTQ+ community which faces the fear of persecution too, in a country that has assured them both that they’re free to be who they want to be, sans judgements. There’s food and the part it plays in bringing people closer, sometimes as an ice breaker, other times as a peace offering. It’s a natural fit, with Ranveer Brar on board. My crush on the chef who graces my mother’s phone screens regularly intensified with every scene. The man can act. And finally, the music, which really seasons the story with soul.
My misgivings with Baai are in the physical portrayal of the relationship between Manzu and Rajveer, which lacks chemistry. The intimate scenes between the otherwise impressive Pratik Gandhi and Ranveer Brar are awkward. I’m curious, was this a conscious choice because of how suppressed Manzu’s emotions were. or his lack of experience? I loved the scene between Tanuja and Gandhi, easily the best thing about this story, and what made me tear up a little because I am a bit touchy about parents and grandparents growing old. Yet, like a masochist, I wished we could’ve gotten more of Tanuja’s Baai talking!
Mumbai Dragon
(Directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, starring Yeo Yann Yann, Meiyang Chang, Wamiqa Gabbi and Naseeruddin Shah)
Yaar, Mumbai Dragon is so awesome! I was the most curious about this one because Vishal Bhardwaj, duh. And the filmmaker, composer, and lyricist didn’t disappoint on any front. It starts in the most unexpected way, which you eventually realise is such clever foreshadowing! Yet, you can’t really predict what exactly the characters are going to do next. One of the reasons for loving the Modern Love series is that love isn’t just romantic entanglements; sometimes, they can be stepping stones for telling a more layered story about another relationship. In Mumbai Dragon, Meiyang Chang’s character, of Indo-Chinese heritage, falls for a pure vegetarian Gujarati girl, much to the chagrin of his overbearing mother who is the keeper of a Chinese temple in the city.
Now you’d think this is going to be a story of a man torn between his mother and the girl he loves that his mother doesn’t approve of. But the parallel it draws with his own struggle to establish his identity in a country that considers him an outsider and the city of dreams that is supposed to not care where he comes from but only what he wants to do is fittingly drawn. I love Bhardwaj’s attention to detail, from the name ‘Mumbai Dragon’, easily a reference to the lead’s heritage while sounding like it’s the typical name of an Indian Chinese restaurant, to the mother’s love conveyed through food and those adorable dabbas that are the equivalent of an Indian maa’s Tupperware! ‘Raat Bhar Hijr Mein’ is beautiful and catchy and a classic Vishal Bhardwaj number, sung so well by Meiyang Chang. I like Chang the actor, and he does a great job here. But you keep forgetting he started out as an Indian Idol contestant, and this song made me want more servings of Chang as a singer, please!
What is Indian Chinese without garlic, no? The masterful performance by Malaysian actor Yeo Yann Yann as Sui is that garlic in this case. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I don’t know how to explain this, but watching her was like watching those old-school Chinese comedies and an animated film, and yet all of it was so palpably authentic and lived in, all at once. If I had to pick a favourite performance in the entire series, I’d pick her’s. Oh, and Naseeruddin Shah is like a nice little fortune cookie, that makes a special appearance to impart some wisdom and some laughs and leave you smiling. All in all, my absolute favourite story!
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My Beautiful Wrinkles
(Directed by Alankrita Shrivastava, starring Sarika, Danesh Razvi, Ahsaas Channa and Tanvi Azmi)
My expectations from an Alankrita Shrivastava work will always be high. And in fact, My Beautiful Wrinkles offers up a promising premise. Sarika is Dilbar Sodhi, a widow from South Bombay, who lost the love of her life in a car crash. She lives with a literal and metaphorical scar, and the sad remnants of the crashed car. When the young 20-something man she is giving personality development lessons to confesses his sexual attraction towards her, Dilbar is finally pushed to take charge of her life, clean out the baggage, rethink prejudices, and take ownership of her body, scars and wrinkles et. al.
Right off the bat, Sarika has an engaging presence, and she plays the part of a woman who is lonely in her grief even when surrounded by people, so well. Danesh Razvi as the young boy from out of town, battling his own imposter syndrome and loneliness in the new city, makes you feel for him. However, the writing of My Beautiful Wrinkles fails its characters, in that the dialogues don’t feel impactful, and the story ends with you feeling like there could’ve been something more. It has beautiful takeaways, surely, and the scene where Sarika confronts her grief for one very long night while the city around her sleeps is its most heart-touching bit. But when compared to the other stories in the lineup, this one felt a tad lukewarm.
I Love Thane
(Directed by Dhruv Sehgal, starring Masaba Gupta, Ritwik Bhowmik, Prateik Babbar, Aadar Malik and Dolly Singh)
Okay, can I confess? I didn’t instantly warm up to this one. I don’t mind a film that is conversation-heavy, which this one clearly is, but initially, it felt that the characters were simply talking and it wasn’t going anywhere or reeling me in? I Love Thane is about a 30-something landscape artist, Saiba, who we see go through a string of failed dates (off a dating app). That is until she returns to Thane, where she is originally from, to work on a local municipality project, and meets Parth in the course of it. I stuck around for Masaba, who I now believe should consider doing more of this because she is such a natural. She talks like we normally would do when a camera isn’t recording, and she grounds most of the lofty first few minutes of I Love Thane.
I also stuck around because I guess I kind of related to Saiba’s plight, the loneliness of being in a fast-paced city, where people just don’t slow down to make a connection or build a conversation, and seedha want to get down to business. Then she goes to Thane and finally, this film begins for me with the scene where Saiba and Parth share a meal, and actually talk.
There’s a lot to unpack in this one, from the elitist attitude that most Mumbaikars would have about Thane to how time genuine slows down when you’re on the city’s outskirts. There’s also the matter of pretence; we know about Saiba that she isn’t one for pretence, because of all the dates she has been on. And yet, subconsciously, she holds on to a very city-dweller like pretence when she goes to Thane for work, But it isn’t until she gets to know Parth that she finds where her heart feels more at home, and neither the distance nor the pin code really matters.
I Love Thane takes time to grow on you, and as someone who has personally experienced this effect that Thane has had on a true-blue Mumbaikar like me, it turns out to be a beautiful story after all, with very grounded and real performances by its leads.
Cutting Chai
(Directed by Nupur Asthana, starring Chitrangda Singh and Arshad Warsi)
I will say this once but consider it a perpetual statement: We need more Arshad Warsi on our screens. He is an absolute delight, whether he is doing comedy, romance, or hard-hitting emotional drama. Cutting Chai has him play a charming but seemingly neglecting husband to Chitrangda Singh’s Latika. She’s a writer in her 40s who hasn’t been able to finish her novel because she fell in love and got married to Warsi’s Daniel, and now has to bring up kids and run the household. Her husband seems to be in concierge services, which means he is more attentive to his hotel guests than to his wife’s needs. On an evening when her husband is late yet again to meet her at the train station, Latika wanders into a ‘What if’ imagination, that helps her see her marriage, her husband, and herself more clearly.
Cutting Chai is cute, okay. But for some reason, it felt less like it was set in Mumbai, and more like it was set in, New York to me! The train station looked like Grand Central because the rush was so tamed, and Latika was easily able to move around whilst daydreaming, without anyone bumping into her or pushing her to get through. It all just felt too… clean and nice, like looking at Mumbai with rose-tinted glasses. I think the opening scene where Latika vents her frustrations about not being able to write, and the last few minutes when Latika and Daniel are in the local train and their stuck love story is moving on to another destination, are what I loved the most. Once again, a tad unbelievable that they both got in the general compartment and there was no rush in the evening!
Cutting Chai isn’t a new story, but it is perhaps Warsi’s endearing performance that makes it enjoyable to watch like a mildly likeable rom-com.
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Verdict
I had plenty of apprehensions about an Indian adaptation of Modern Love, one of them being whether our’s would be just as bold, inventive, and experimental with the stories it chooses to tell. The other was about whether it would be just as evocative. On the latter front, Modern Love Mumbai was a decently emotional ride for me. One of our quintessential Indian touches is that both music and food are given such importance in the storytelling. The Modern Love Mumbai album, including the title track, really supplements the stories. On the former front, we still have a lot to learn, but this was definitely a good start for a first attempt. I look at these stories and I can only see the sheer potential our Indian filmmakers have to offer the rom-com genre, which desperately needs some good experimental storytelling.
I quote this one a lot, but here goes. One of my favourite recent rom-com, Set It Up, has this line—We like because. But we love despite. And I think I can find it in my heart to love Modern Love Mumbai’s first iteration on the learning curve, despite its faults!
Modern Love Mumbai is currently streaming on Prime Video.
