‘Mr and Mrs Mahi’ review: Another unremarkable cricket film

It was only a few weeks ago I was grumbling about how Rajkummar Rao's brief swing towards darkness in Srikanth felt half-hearted coming from an actor who's always relished playing a shitheel. Now there's another Rao film out, and here too he has a heel turn. But this one is more sustained, and Rao commits to it fully. This doesn't mean we don't see it coming from a mile out. Sharan Sharma's Mr and Mrs Mahi might look like a sports film, but it's itching to be Abhimaan.

The first inkling is when Mahima (Janhvi Kapoor) is whacking club bowlers for six after six. She's only identified as a crazy fan before this, so it's the first time her husband, Mahendra (Rao), is seeing her play. He's visibly thrilled and proud—but you can also sense the film tossing out hints. As Mahima is flaying the bowlers, the music picks up, an ominous thrum. There's pure joy on her face, whereas her husband is giving a look that, if you've watched Rao enough, you'll recognize as bad news.

Mahendra is a failed cricketer, a club-level batter who'd like to think he was one miscued shot away from impressing state selectors, though in reality he probably wouldn't have lasted at that level. He's the sourest of early retirees, just about holding down a job in his father's sporting goods store. Not that it's a stimulating work environment; Hardayal, played by a blustery Kumud Mishra, yells constantly and calls him a 'defective piece'.

Into Mahendra's disappointing life comes Mahima, a topper, a doctor. She's accomplished as he is ordinary, but she likes him anyway and they're soon married. They find out they're both cricket-crazy after a chaste first night as a couple—the first clinch of love comes, as these things do, after a particularly spicy Ishant Sharma delivery the next morning. They settle into a reasonably happy domestic life. This could be a neat film in itself: Mahendra's search for self-worth, Hardayal becoming a decent human, cricket as the glue.

Which brings us to Mahima spraying sixes. Suddenly this is a different film, with Mahendra—who was leaning towards taking up coaching—having found a project. Mr and Mrs Mahi isn't much of a cricket film, though. I can't think of a single shot Kapoor or Rao play in full, uncut from the time the ball leaves the bowler's hand to the moment of impact with the bat. A smart film would do this once, maybe twice, early on. That's all you need—a little indication to the viewer that efforts were made to look like genuine athletes.

The bigger problem is Mahima's meteoric rise. Mahendra sees her play for the first time and decides she can compete professionally. This is someone who hasn't played cricket since she was a little girl, who's only faced a tennis ball. Yet we see her become—in six months—a star at club level and an instant success at state level, on the fringes of national selection. We don't see her once in the field. It's rather patronizing; I can't imagine a men's cricket film with the same trajectory being greenlit.

Since this is a film of emotionally stunted men and wise, patient women, the more his wife succeeds, the more unhappy Mahendra becomes. It comes to the point that his coldness starts affecting her game (apparently state-level coaches can't instruct her on how to play a bouncer). She loses all form, the Rajasthan coach keeps berating her... and yet she keeps getting selected. Also: would someone tell Hindi screenwriters that having characters speak in sports metaphors all the time doesn't make them relatable but instead faintly ridiculous? As Mahima heads for her first press conference and Mahendra piles her with advice, an official comes up and asks for a "strategic time out in your romantic moment".

Mahendra's jealousy feels genuine, if not terribly interesting or insightful (it's a good sight more compelling than his father's one-note awfulness, or her father's insistence on her becoming a doctor). That Mr and Mrs Mahi remains a watchable film despite all the narrative shortcuts and a tendency to spell things out is in large part due to Rao and Kapoor. Whoever thought of pairing the two had a good hunch; there's a believable, fond quality to their scenes together. Still, I'm hoping for a strategic time out of my own, a few years if possible, from Hindi cricket films.

Also read: Payal Kapadia on her Cannes sensation ‘All We Imagine as Light’