Pati Patni Aur Woh
Director: Mudassar Aziz
Starring: Kartik Aryan, Bhumi Pednekar, Ananya Panday, Aparshakti Khurana, Rajesh Sharma, Ankita Goraya, Navni Parihar
If you are a fan of old masalas being served in a fancy new package and never-a-dull-moment fare, Pati Patni Aur Woh is the perfect weekend watch for you. Take your family, college-wala gang or bachcha party, it’s a safe with no smooch and only mooch must-watch.
Pati Patni Aur Woh is the latest comedy on the block where the hero romances gharwali and baharwali but would hop out of the window of a highrise if the two kanyas land together.
You might not have watched the 1978 cult comedy starring Sanjeev Kumar, Vidya Sinha and Ranjeeta if you are a college student and planning to bunk classes to watch the just-released version.
Pati Patni Aur Who: What was the original film about?
So talking about the original Pati Patni Aur Woh, it was the light-hearted take on perils of indulging in extra-marital relationship when you already have a perfect wife, and basically the baap of all such movies that were made on the same theme to cash in on a hit formula.
Written by Kamleshwar and produced and directed by BR Chopra, the film is still considered a cult classic. Sanjeev Kumar falls for his secretary (played by Ranjeeta) and lies to her that his wife has cancer. Vidya Sinha, the hale and hearty wife turns detective to expose husband’s plan and is successful.
After 40 years of the original film’s release, Mudassar Aziz remakes it and adds David Dhawan masala, Rohit Shetty package to stir up this Golmaal of extra-marital affair of a small-town husband who falls for a hot kanya in his office (Ananya Panday) who likes his awkward smile and old-school ways.
Kartik, his mooch, his smile
Kartik Aryan steps into the shoes of Sanjeev Kumar but is expected to be more like Govinda/Salman Khan/ Varun Dhawan/Anil Kapoor who have mastered the art of playing dagabaaz saajan and being sandwiched between two kanyas and playing Mr Bechara when in effect they are the one manipulating their gharwalis and baharwalis.
Kartik Aryan lends his own flavour to his Kanpuriya character with his inimitable smile partially hidden behind his kadak mooch (as mentioned by our baharwali Ananya Panday) and slipping into his small-town character effortlessly.
Bhumi, the new-age wife
If Kartik portrays the character well, Bhumi Pednekar is the one who becomes her character. Clearing the masala film test with flying colours, Bhumi like always adds fine nuances to her character so that it looks different from what she has played before. She expresses with her tirchhi smile, movement of an eyebrow, sway of her kamar, Kanpuriya accent et al.
A girl who doesn’t shy away in telling her prospective groom about her rowdy boyfriend and listing “having sex” as one of her hobbies, she plays a small-town patakha who decides her own destiny rather than anybody choosing her over chai and samosas.
Sweet, responsible and loyal she might be, she is as desirable as ever even after three years of marriage and is a crush of one of her coaching class student Rakesh Yadav. Husband Chintu can’t handle her big-town dreams of settling in Delhi and gets increasingly frustrated as he’s happy eating laddoos from a local shop.
When Chintu cheats on this chirpy kanya she doesn’t go berserk, at least on surface. She never claimed to be Karisma Kapoor of Biwi No 1 in the first place, she would rather be a “kulta” (in her own words) than a sati-savitri.
She glams it up, grabs a peg, and dances at a wedding with her ex-boyfriend after breaking ties with Chintuji and calmly thinks of a gameplan to settle scores. And yeah, she is successful in driving him nuts.
Other performances
Ananya as Tapasya plays the glamorous role again after Student of the Year and fits in her role fine. She is raw, fresh and beautiful, but should do more challenging roles in future to show her range better.
Aparshakti Khurana as Chintu’s friend Fahim Rizvi gets to mouth some crispy and spicy dialogues that would crack you up.
Kanpur, the villain and the hero
The film is high on Kanpur vibe, considering our lead characters Kartik and Bhumi are from the city. The small town is also one of the villains that come between their relationship as Vedika wants to move to Delhi and wants Chintu to do something big while he is content in where he is.
However, the Kanpur vibe provides an authenticity and newness to the film which gets saved from being tagged another mindless caper.
Downside
The downside is you have seen most of the masala tropes before in innumerable films that are from the genre of confusion comedy if we may call it, and it is not exactly fun when you have to laugh at predictable jokes.
Upside
Bhumi’s character and her gameplan towards the end of the movie is the best thing about the movie and it makes viewers curious what would happen next.
However, the predictable end is a dampener and it ruins the build-up to the climax.
Verdict
Pati, Patni Aur Woh is your regular masala entertainer that tries to be different from the rest of the movies of the genre, but fails somewhere.