Maach Mishti & More (2013)

#Review

Calcutta films have come a long way. Once most of ’em used to be run-of-the-mill regurgitated crap. Now there’s a genuine attempt to create something different.

Maach Mishti & More (MMM from hereon), in director Mainak Bhowmik’s own words, is a “love letter to Calcutta”. If I have to blunt, it’s a quite poor attempt at writing one.

Firstly, the dialogues. 60% of them are in English. Even the Bangla ones have a bit of English thrown into them since apparently that’s how you can be a modern “Bong”.

It’s an absurd idea; an insular point of view.

The story is your generic drama/romantic comedy. It revolves around a typical Calcutta joint family. The eldest son is an NRI getting back to the city with his NRI wife. His younger brother is going to marry a Marwari girl ‘soon’ and the youngest one is trying to be an actor. The story moves back-and-forth into their lives and how things change around them. Their midlife crisis, romantic complexities yada yada. Nothing you haven’t seen before.

The story makes everything about ‘love’. If that’s not cheesy enough, they make sure it is with ideas like “soul-mates”, “the perfect one” and “why did I make this movie?”.

It’s sad though. The cast is good. They can (mostly) act, and they deserve a better plot. To be honest, the first hour of the movie is quite good. It just falls apart spectacularly from thereon. Also portraying ‘modern’ Calcutta girls as chain-smokers is quite offensive. Since when does smoking signify modernism? Ludicrous.

MMM tries to break the mould. Unfortunately it’s broken itself in that pursuit.

6/10.

I’d rate lower if not for the first hour of the film.