‘Mismatched’…A rom-com drama with a lot of underutilized potential.
In recent years, Netflix has been revitalizing the teen rom-com genre for a new generation of young adults. These efforts now have reached the Indian shores, in its latest offering, Mismatched, starring YouTuber Prajakta Koli and the fresh-faced Rohit Saraf.
The story gets going when Dimple Ahuja (Prajakta Koli), a 17-year-old from Ambala, registers for a course on coding in Jaipur. Her mother, who only has marriage in mind, objects at first but later agrees when she finds out that a potential match awaits her daughter in the city. Dimple, of course, has no idea. In comes, Rishi Singh Shekhawat (an earnest Rohit Saraf), an 18-year-old who eagerly wants to get married, as he believes that an early arranged marriage like his grandmother’s, is the key to a long, happy marriage.
Now, I have hypothesized that there will always be a stumbling block in every rom-com. The moment where a red flag pops up in your head telling you this scenario in actuality is creepy, sexist, or plain dumb. But then you calm down, and convince yourself — after all this is fiction, and plus how else will the plot get going, if the characters never meet?
In Mismatched, Dimple and Rishi’s age is that bitter medicine to be swallowed. Though after the first episode, it is easier to ignore, it still felt absurd to hear teenagers talk about marriage, especially Rishi, who seems way too excited to get married and swipes left on photos of potential brides, together with his grandmother. I don’t know why the makers couldn’t have bumped up their age to 21 or 22, which is ideally the time when families start talking about marriage (although, at the same time, this sense of idealism works better with teenagers, like how Rishi thinks an early arranged marriage would prevent a divorce like his parents).
Mismatched then is more misses than hits as it attempts to mix and match (pun intended) the American high school sensibility into an Indian setting (similar to how Netflix’s other original Sex Education was set in England but with lockers, football jerseys, and no uniform, gave off the American high school vibe). You have the stereotypical set of characteristics, sorry, characters, from nerds, bullies, gamers to a character with bright coloured hair and a social media influencer. But because this is set in India, we also get the cultural checklist, so there’s a loud, brash Delhi-ite, an NRI, a rich Rajput, a Christian, and a Muslim widow from Lucknow who speaks only in chaste Urdu. So, when there is the supposed twist of a character being gay, you can see it coming miles away only because that’s the only box left unchecked in the list of ‘diverse’ characters. (Devyani Shorey who plays this gay character, Namrata, plays her part so well, I wouldn’t mind a spin-off on just her character).
Jaipur makes for a gorgeous backdrop with its step wells, forts, and palaces, and is shot beautifully by Avinash Arun and Milind Jog, but it has no bearing on the plot. Change Jaipur to Mumbai or Delhi, it makes no difference. The city is as much an aesthetic as the characters’ personalities. The show doesn’t touch on it, but I liked the contrast between Jaipur’s old-world charm and the new India’s tech-centric ambitions.
I sound disappointed, but I still did enjoy the show. I liked the quirky graphics used to demonstrate everyone’s ideas for developing an app. I liked how every episode had a different narrator. I liked how one misunderstanding snowballs into one big blowout. I liked how the story is just about its characters. It isn’t preaching any message or criticizing a social ill. We are allowed to spend time with these sometimes likable, sometimes annoying but always misunderstood characters without passing any judgment. It is only after I finished the show— especially during the last two episodes — that I started seeing the faults. There is so much potential in each of the characters’ backstories or secrets, but this information is dropped at random, never fitting conclusively into the story.
Take the heartbreaking moment where Simran (Kritika Bharadwaj) — the influencer — takes a mirror selfie after an argument with her boyfriend, faking a smile for the camera. It’s a touching moment, where she is consoling herself by the perfect facade she has created for her online followers, but the character has been rendered such a bully all this while, that you don’t feel any sympathy for her. Even the whole plotline of the contrasting characters paired together for creating the app gets nowhere. I was looking forward to seeing how each team would bring out each other’s flaws and strengths while developing the app, but then again, we never find out why all these characters want to develop an app in the first place. Or why are they so enthusiastic about coding? Why does Zeenat (a lovely Vidya Malvade) the adult amongst the teens, suddenly want to learn how to design an app? Why are Celina (Muskkaan Jaferi) and Simran there if they aren’t interested in the course? It isn’t compulsory and the fees is quite high, so why is Celina then working part-time to pay for a course she is remotely interested in? These characters then have no relation to the whole purpose of the show, or at least we never find out why. Dimple is the only one who gets some semblance of a motivation but her actions rarely show it, while the posters of quotes on her wall are screaming it.
The finale was damp and the only reason for its sudden insertion was to probably open up new developments for a second season. But, even with all this criticism, I look forward to a second season and I hope that the makers squeeze the worth of the drama hinted at in this season, and we get a much much better (and longer) season two.
