Jeo Baby's The Great Indian Kitchen is one of those films that can be remade in as many languages as possible. Given its subject, the remakes give the impression that a voice is being amplified from one corner to another. Those who have seen the original will know what to expect from Arati Kadav's Mrs.: An aspiring dancer, after marriage, finds herself trapped in a patriarchal environment. Her wings are clipped, her legs are tied, and she moves mostly in and around the kitchen. Nimisha Sajayan's role in this Hindi remake is given to Sanya Malhotra. Her Richa has a sweet, girlish voice that accentuates how naive she is. One senses that Richa is one of those women who think married life is as cute and magical as those (puke-worthy) reels on Instagram. The more time she spends in the kitchen, the more she realizes that she has been shackled. Ashwin (Kanwaljit Singh), Richa's father-in-law, politely refers to Richa as "beta," and Meena (Aparna Ghoshal), the mother-in-law, politely "trains" Richa to make various dishes, but there is a feeling of discomfort underneath the calm, cheery exterior. Diwakar (Nishant Dahiya), the husband, gently asks Richa to fetch a medical box or pack his luggage. His so-called requests, however, carry the suggestion of a strict order that must be followed without any protest or question.
Diwakar summons Richa for trivial purposes. With an urgency in his voice, he calls Richa so she can...take out his clothes from the wardrobe. He tells her to cook another "light dish" even when there are leftovers. As an insensitive schmuck, Dahiya gets under your skin with his patronizing smile. When Diwakar compliments Richa by saying that she smells like "kitchen" and that it's the sexiest smell in the world, you feel like telling him that if the scent is so sexy, then perhaps he should leave his job and start working in the kitchen. Both the father and the son undermine Richa's hard work. The former never utters a simple "thank you," while the latter dispenses cruel remarks as "jokes." The women don't help much, either. They provide strength to patriarchal roots and pass them on to future generations. A little girl says that husbands should be considered good luck. The movie builds a pressure cooker-like atmosphere, and the audience waits for the explosion. Nonetheless, when the end credits started to roll, I asked myself, "That's it? Is this all Mrs. has to offer?"
The movie, written by Harman Baweja and Anu Singh Choudhary, takes us through scenes that have stress built into them. When Richa, wearing earphones, starts dancing in the kitchen, you instantly predict something bad will happen. Every scene is driven by a single-minded purpose: To make the audience as uneasy as possible. Mrs. succeeds in this mission. There were moments when I wanted to cover my eyes, thanks to the chilling benignity the characters exuded. These scenes, however, merely push your buttons. While Richa tries to talk about her dance troupe, others keep her confined to the kitchen. Mrs., after a while, just becomes a demonstration of various ways in which Diwakar's family members suppress Richa. And who is Richa? A punching bag that ignites angry emotions within us. The rage doesn't arise from our sympathetic feelings towards Richa. We feel nothing about this character. Rather, we are only encouraged to be annoyed at Diwakar and other characters.
Mrs. is filled with obvious touches. Diwakar talks about 4D machines and remarks that people should change according to the times so that we can see how this cheerleader of technology himself cherishes regressive attitudes. A balloon rises in the air, and its ascent is halted by the ceiling of the house. That balloon is obviously Richa, and the image screams that she cannot fly in Diwakar's household. All these elements are so on the nose that it feels as if Kadav is a student trying to ace Symbolism 101. The director comes across as a mathematician, working more with logic than feeling or intuition. No wonder she uses prime numbers to teach a lesson. Kadav made her feature debut with a sci-fi film, Cargo, and in her interviews and social media posts, you notice a science geek fascinated by the outer world. That balloon, then, could just as well be Kadav. She wants to explore space with science fiction but is trapped working in the realm of domestic drama. Is this why Mrs. looks so visually insipid and unimaginative and devoid of an impassioned touch?
Consider the scene where Richa, while having sex with her husband, is disgusted by the odor of the waste that she handles in the kitchen. In the original, the sexual act was intercut with images of detritus. Hence, the intercourse, too, reeked of something foul. In Mrs., Richa merely sniffs her fingers. Jeo Baby took us close to the dirt and rendered the protagonist's nausea palpable. Kadav, on the other hand, remains a bit distant by solely concentrating on the character's repulsed expression. Her filmmaking has no sense of excitement - she treats her images as bullet point reports (written with caps lock on). Kadav might have agreed to do this film because she is not a fan of patriarchy, like many women (and men). But all her dedication goes into creating something equivalent to a Twitter rant that vanishes from your sight, mind, and timeline as soon as you scroll down.
In some households, women are allowed to work, but only if they can balance their professional responsibilities with household chores. They can hang out with their friends, but only after preparing meals for the rest of the house. They can take a walk in the park with their husband, though when it comes to watching a movie in the theater alone, their request is immediately shot down. I wish the filmmakers, through this remake, had taken us inside such a complex world. Alas, they are too busy creating a simplistic narrative that evokes easy emotions. One of Richa's friends has a husband who cooks for her. What does he do? Is he just a househusband? Both The Great Indian Kitchen and Mrs. suggest that everything's fine when a man is put inside Richa's shoes, that a man wouldn't be bothered by clogged basins and demanding cooking chores. If the directors of both films knew what it actually means to be in a progressive household, they would have presented the friend's domestic life as a space where the responsibilities are equally divided between the spouses. Either both filmmakers are sucking up to pseudo-feminists or are pseudo-feminists themselves.
People often complain about remakes because they don't want to rewatch the same story in a different language. I think one story can be presented in various styles and forms. A director can view a remake as an opportunity to highlight what's missing or what could have been better in the source. The people who made Mrs., unfortunately, have nothing fresh or exciting to contribute to the material. They could have explored new directions instead of almost slavishly following the route of the original. For instance, why not let Richa discuss her dance career with Diwakar before marriage? If she loves this activity so much, why doesn't she bring it up during the meeting that occurs at the beginning of Mrs.? What's worse is that Richa and Kadav are not on the same wavelength. The former enthusiastically talks about her dancing skills, but the director films the dance sequences without vigor. The opening number merely foreshadows the future (by moving between the food preparations and dance, Mrs. says that Richa will soon shift from one space to another). And the performance we see at the end looks like the kind of song-and-dance sequence that's inserted during the end credits of a commercial potboiler. The dance performance that we watch during the final moments of The Great Indian Kitchen oozes a feverish rhythm. We are so elated by the choreography, and the steps that when Richa claps, we clap with her. No such intense sentiments ever come to the surface while watching Mrs. After spending all our time despising Richa's oppressors, we realize that the movie has failed to offer anything else to us. Shouldn't we have also been rooting for a woman's liberation? Don't tell me; tell the filmmakers.
Final Score- [3.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times