Cast : Aadhi Pinisetty, Nithya Menen, Ritu Varma, Suhasini Maniratnam, Revathy, Naresh, Malavika Nair, Abijeet Duddala, Naresh Agastya, Komalee Prasad, Ulka Gupta
Director: Nagesh Kukunoor, Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala, Devika Bahudanam
The Hyderabad chapter of the widely loved US original anthology series, Modern Love Hyderabad explores six diverse yet universal stories of different facets, shades and moods of love, all set in the city’s many unique milieus.
We get an interesting mix of love-laced narratives – mostly happy endings, some predictable and some moving, but every one of them works to a large extent. Overall, it’s a show that showcases Hyderabad like never seen before, and the presentation makes us laugh and tug at the heartstrings.
Nagesh Kukunoor already made a modern love story way back in 1998. Hyderabad Blues was one of those little indie films that became a big life changer for people who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Breaking away from mainstream cinema with its superman heroes and damsel-in-distress heroines, Hyderabad Blues spoke for a generation that had to reconcile with the strong pull of local cultural links in a globalised world.
Modern Love Hyderabad, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is produced by Elahe Hiptoola and Nagesh Kukunoor, with the latter directing three of the six short films.
In My Unlikely Pandemic Partner — starring Revathy and Nithya Menen, Noori (Nithya) leaves her home when her mother, Meherunissa (Revathy), objects to her marrying a Shia man. They are Sunni Muslims and her deeply religious mother cannot accept her choice. Six years later though, Noori and Meherunnissa are stuck in the same house in the wake of the sudden COVID-19 lockdown.
Noori is an atheist and a teacher. Her mother is traditional and a great cook. Noori wears classy, casual clothes. Her mother wears shiny sarees and a burqa when going out. But Kukunoor doesn’t over-emphasise these differences to make a point. They are just two different Muslim women who have chosen lifestyles that work for them.
While the bitterness of the past almost always threatens to spill into the present, Noori and Meherunissa carve out a common ground between them — with Hyderabadi food, an overly paranoid neighbour (he wears a PPE to collect his biryani), a helpful autorickshaw driver, and conversation that ebbs and flows naturally. Revathy is amazing as Meherunissa. Whether she is weeping, confessing or hiding a smile, the actor’s minute expressions bring much nuance to the performance. Nithya complements the veteran star perfectly, and the chemistry they share on screen makes the film endearing, even if the ending is unnecessarily hyperbolic.
Fuzzy, Purple and Full of Thorns, starring Aadhi Pinisetty and Ritu Varma as a live-in couple, is interesting and has several moments that sparkle. Uday (Aadhi) and Renu (Ritu) have a fairytale meeting at a temple. Her shoes go missing and a piece of broken coconut pierces her foot and she falls, only to be caught by Aadhi. While they come together in a somewhat traditionally cinematic episode, their life later has that easygoing flavour of modern relationships that Kukunoor captures very well. We see the story from Renu’s perspective, and since she is a cartoonist, her “mind voice” transforms into entertaining little cartoon episodes that interrupt the narrative.
A pair of fuzzy purple shoes that Renu finds in Uday’s closet becomes a point of conflict between the couple. Ritu has a flair for comedy, and she is a delight to watch as she goes round the bend trying to get the shoes out of her head. In comparison, Aadhi’s Uday comes off as one-note and undeserving of someone with Renu’s chutzpah. The ending borders on casting Renu into the annoying stereotype of the ever-suspicious wife but with its funky music and engaging tone, Fuzzy is quite fun to watch.
Why Did She Leave Me There…? , Kukunoor’s third in the series, is about Rohan (Naresh Agastya), the CEO of a company, delivering the kind of trite motivational speeches that are dime-a-dozen do on LinkedIn and the one that makes you roll your eyes instantly. He then goes to an orphanage to distribute gifts at his friend’s behest. As it turns out, this is the orphanage that he grew up in.
Now in the opening scene, Rohan tells a bunch of starstruck employees that the one word that stands between them and success is “excuses”. The story deviates from that and becomes about a grandmother (Suhasini Maniratnam) who is forced to leave her grandson at the orphanage. The title presents this as a mystery, but there is no mystery anywhere in the film, considering Suhasini’s character is coughing all the time. Why is this the question that has bothered Rohan, the brilliant CEO all these years? Isn’t it obvious? It wasn to us.
Kukunoor, who is normally a pro at defnining modern relationships in his characters, struggles with creating the grandmother-grandson bond andactually uses songs to establish it. The Bakasura story that is supposed to act as a metaphor is repeated too many times for it to really have an impact. The Buddha statue at the Hussain Sagar is a constant presence through the twists and turns in Rohan’s life, but it is a passive piece in the landscape that only serves to remind us that this story is set in Hyderabad. Overall, this story missed the point.
What Clown Wrote This Script!, directed by Uday Gurrala, is about standup comedian Vinnie (Malavika Nair) and video producer Ashwin (Abijeet Duddala), who collab on a comedy show. Vinnie has a standup routine about the Telugu abbayi, which is a crowd favourite (was missing the punch tho’). Ashwin, who is fed up of working on melodramatic TV serials, convinces her to work with him.
Malavika is impressive as Vinnie, delivering her punchlines in a dry, ironic tone and looking really comfortable onstage with the material, even if badly landing. Ashwin doesn’t have as much colour as Vinnie,. The film is neither a passionate full-blown romance nor a maddening on-and-off relationship so you end up not being invested in the relationship of the couple at all.. The ending, though, is pretty relatable and puts a smile on your face.
About that Rustle in the Bushes, directed by Devika Bahudhanam, is about a young woman who goes on dates with men she meets on a matrimonial site. She lives with her parents, who know that she goes on dates but would rather not acknowledge it. Ulka Gupta’s Sneha yearns for love; the right man, though, never seems to come along. Naresh plays her overprotective father who wants to control all aspects of his daughters life and the actor pulls off the role with a kind of hilarity that makes you look past labels. The scene in which he is sitting with his long-suffering wife and making her eat fruits had me in splits.
It is not that Sneha takes his overbearing nature lying down, but the ending still urges the audience to look at the father’s invasive interest in his adult daughter’s life as a form of love which made our insides turn. It is the father’s past mistake that pushes him to go to such lengths — but of what use is the realisation if it has only led to such an unhealthy obsession? The script has misplaced concepts of using filial piety as form of love and the cultural conditioning of never questioning our elders as a done cultural dictat, which makes it extremely problematic.
Venkatesh Maha’s Finding Your Penguin is also about a young woman in search of love. Indu (Komalee Prasad) is a microbiologist, and there is so little romance in her life that even the bacteria in her petri dish are not reproducing. No really. She has just broken up with her boyfriend and her girl gang is keen to set her up with someone she would like. But Indu has ideas of her own — she decides to take inspiration from the animal kingdom. Quite literally.
There are some fun bits and laugh-out-loud moments in Finding Your Penguin. The non-judgemental tone to Indu’s explorations are particularly refreshing.
Modern Love Hyderabad, like most Indian anthologies, is a mixed bag which has its good ones and its not so hip ones. You can choose which ones to watch
