CAST: Mini Mathur, Cyrus Sahukar, Ali Fazal
DIRECTED BY: Sahil Sangha; Ajay Bhuyan
Mind The Malhotras is reminiscent of an early 90’s sitcom mixed with a saas bahu serial. It centers around Rishabh and Shefali Malhotra, a married couple going to therapy because most of their couple friends have split up.
Each episode is set in this therapist’s office and tackles a problem that viewers can relate with: marital difficulties, financial worries, problems with kids or the notorious Punjabi mother-in-law. The characters are somewhat glorified tropes, although both Mini Mathur and Cyrus Sahukar do a brilliant job of pulling off an overly-anxious Mumbai wife and a sweet, simple and absent-minded husband.
All the marital and familial conflicts are spun into comedy for the viewers and although there are some laugh out loud moments, it often feels like a gag reel of disconnected incidents, becoming boring and repetitive and reducing the show’s binge watch potential. The director seems to be covering up the lack of any concrete plot line with humor.
Moreover, the fact that they were in therapy, still rare in Indian society, was used only as a convenient setting and not resolved. Despite going to 10 therapy sessions, there seemed to be absolutely no resolution of the protagonists’ conflicts.
The last scene of the show, which paints the image of a perfect family is testament to this. So watch this show if you want something frothy and mindless to laugh to as WFH background noise but don’t expect much more than a few well timed jokes (and a cameo by the gorgeous hunk Ali Fazal).
On Prime Video
