Miत्रों

In theory this film should not work, the lead actor has only two significant expressions, a wide smile and a stumped look, the story is simple, the rest of the characters are heavily stereotyped, the climax is shorter version of Munnabhai’s radio sequence, most of the scenes and plot points seem to be heavily plagiarized, comedy and punches are more in the vein of gags rather than smart humor…..

BUT

for some reason, the comedy of errors – works !

When the lead actor says, there are three kinds of people in this world, one who do a job, second who do a business, and third who like me are born to do nothing, only Jacky Bhagnani’s wide smile without a hint of passion would have worked, and the movie has him.

The movie is like a Pav Bhaji, the director has set out to make a Pav Bhaji, no fancy ingredients like Feta Cheese, no gimmick like home crushed spices, just off the shelf standard ingredients mixed in proportion to deliver a straight forward Pav Bhaji. And you know what, sometimes having a normal meal is appetizing.

Mitron is set in Gujarat may seem for the  simple reason that some gags work in Gujarati but probably more likely because the writer is from Gujarat, otherwise the story could have been set anywhere. Just think of this, the lead actor’s dream is to become a chef, he practices cooking all the food in world from burgers to tandoors yet never attempts a single Gujarati dish! However after a overdose of Punjabi accent and words like ‘gal’ ‘paindi’ and raps with ‘daru’ ‘kudi’ ‘sohni’ etc, Gujarati sounds are a refreshing change. The traditional homes and streets of a nice urban Gujarati city are also welcome against the overkill of crowded colonies with roof jumping hippies.

All characters in the movie are normal, no drug addicts, no hyper creative ones, no overt sexualization, no fancy cars, everything is normal. Typical middle class values, goals and life is depicted. The movie finds humor in these day to day activities, extracting hilarity from the mundane. When the three friends are handed a cheque of 500 rupees for all their efforts on a You Tube channel you just relate to the humor in it. Countless middle class Indians in the hype of instant fame and money have started a plethora of You Tube channels and for most of them the absurdity of the equation that converts views into rupees is a favorite table time joke. If you do not understand the ‘table’ in the previous line, then this movie is surely not for you. Also, some people do not start a You Tube channel, they also start a site with a spelling mistake.

Movies like 3 Idiots, Tamasha, etc over the years have tried a philosophical take on idea of a ‘career’. This movie in many ways is a parody on all of those deep philosophical insights, when the lead character Jay is taking to his father about becoming a chef, he not passionate nor insightful, simply like a student cheating on an exam, he reads out lines written in short hand from his palm which is so obvious that even his father has to remark ‘theek se to padh haath pe kya likha hai’ (read properly what is written on your palm). Furthermore, the lines are not even original, they are notes from his earlier meeting with a chef. And when the Jay’s friend is confronted by Jay’s father, he too parrots the same line – the parody is complete.

‘Astrology is a science’ is another well done parody from the movie. Jay’s prospective father in law has great belief in astrology which has revealed that Jay’s marriage to his only daughter will result in exponential growth in business, and hence agrees to pay one crore as dowry to Jobless Jay for this single astrological reason. Jay’s only plan is to keep the money in fixed deposit and then live off the interest. Yet the father in law in a subsequent meeting, despite of the astrological go-ahead lays another condition that Jay must prove himself in a business before he can hand over the entire wealth to him. Jobless Jay who has taken six years to complete his Automobile engineer has a prior experience of getting fired from a call center, where he was a no good shifarashi tattu, he was banking on his stars to get him a comfortable life but apparently has  to chart a new path. The irony of ‘astrological’ faith subject to terms and conditions is not missed.

Arranged marriages is another parody well done in the movie. Gone are the days when arranged marriages were done between families who knew each other with overlapping relatives as the vehicle for arranging the proposals. Today’s scenario is more about matrimonial sites and profile numbers, thus when Jay’s family mistakenly lands up at  Avni’s place, who are also waiting for a “boy’s” family, you realize that this is quite possible. It takes a good hour before anyone realizes this, furthermore when Jay reaches the one crore family he was supposed to meet, he extends the joke about mistaken identity when he starts conversing with the house maid as if she is the bride to be.

The movie just moves from one gag to next, one parody to the other, the director never flirts with logic and uses everything as a prop for humor. Thus when Avni’s classmate (MBA from an IIM lookalike institute) ends up as a Radio Jockey for the climax, you know that convenience is the priority and not logic. Gladly, the movie stays away from overt sentimentality, even serious stages in the climax are punctuated by jokes like ‘I am writing a book, titled Mind you own Business’ and  we call it a wrap on a lighter note.

The movie has no takeaways,  it is a simple happy and chatty meal you have at a small restaurant which lifts your spirits temporarily, leaves you with endorphins, dopamine and serotonin, very unlikely that you will recall the meal a few weeks down the line but while you are there you enjoy it especially if you are there with family and friends.