vandana gupte – The Metrognome

This week’s release is about choosing between a home in Mumbai or the idea of a family; explored in sensitive detail.

by Ravi Shet

Rating: 4 out of 5

Double Seat directed by Sameer Vidwans is the story of newly married middle class couple – Amit Naik (Ankush Chaudhari) and Manjiri Naik (Mukta Barve) – who live in a small house with Amit’s parents (Vandana Gupte and Vidyadhar Joshi) and brother (Shubhankar Tawade) with the determination to buy a new home in the city.

The couple comes back from its honeymoon to their chawl based in Lalbaug, Mumbai. Manjiri works as an Insurance agent hailing from small town, living in Mumbai for the first time in her life, while Amit works in a courier company. She quickly settles into Mumbai’s pace of life and also learns how to ride a two-wheeler and catch the local trains. But the couple struggles to find privacy. There are moments when they resort to sending each other text messages to express their emotions.

As the days pass by, Amit tells Manjiri that it’s time to have their own home. They start their home hunt, Amit likes a house and pays a token amount for it. The couple is about to go ahead with their plans when Manjiri announces that she is pregnant. They now have to decide if they should buy the house or have a child, since they cannot afford the expense of both. This causes a rift between them.

The direction is excellent in terms of connecting the storyline realistically. The dialogues are good, too, as is the music by Jasraj, Saurabh and Hrishikesh.

Ultimately, the film rests on the performances by Ankush Chaudhari, Mukta Barve, Vandana Gupte and Vidyadhar Joshi, who are excellent in this film. Double Seat is a must-watch film for all Mumbaikars who struggle to find homes, love and meaning in the city.

(Picture courtesy www.megamarathi.com)

Review: Murder Mestri

An intriguing plot is somewhat waylaid by its lazy treatment, but is saved by its stellar performances and crisp dialogues.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Murder Mestri, directed by Rahul Jadhav, is the story of Prabhakar (Hrishikesh Joshi) who works as a postman in Malgaon and has a strange habit of reading other people’s letters.

Prabhakar is close to his lovable daughter Pari, whom he tells bedtime stories. One day, the villagers find that Prabhakar has been hiding many of their letters for a while (to read at his leisure) and they beat and abuse him in front of the other villagers, including his wife and daughter. Pari believes that her father is a superhero and wants him to do something great that would make her proud.

He decides to stop reading people’s letters; however he can’t resist and soon opens another letter which says that someone named Madhav Mestri in Sawantwadi will be killed by his wife. Encouraged by Pari, Prabhakar makes his journey to Sawantwadi to find and save this Mestri; however on reaching his destination, he discovers that there are three people with the name Madhav Mestri.

One Madhav Mestri (Vikas Kadam) is recently married to Hemlata (Manasi Naik) and he is planning his honeymoon. The second Madhav Mestri (Sanjay Khapre) is the sarpanch of the village and his better half Saraswati (Kranti Redkar) while the third, Madhav Mestri (Dilip Prabhavalkar) is a doctor and Malini (Vandana Gupte) is his wife. Prabhakar writes and delivers letter to all the three Mestris, so that one of the Mestris whose life is in threat can be saved. The moment the letters are read by the three Madhav Mestris, it leads to chaos in the married lives of the three couples.

The plot is interesting but its treatment is passable, however the performances by Dilip Prabhavalkar, Hrishikesh Joshi, Kranti Redkar and Vandana Gupte take this film up several notches. Their comic timing is impeccable and the lines they speak are crisp, so if you’re looking for a good laugh riot, you could try this film out.

(Picture courtesy marathistars.com)