Nagesh Kukunoor already made a modern love story way back in 1998. Hyderabad Blues was one of those little indie films that became a big marker for people like me, who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Breaking away from mainstream cinema with its superman heroes and damsel-in-distress heroines, Hyderabad Blues spoke for a generation that had to reconcile with the strong pull of local cultural links in a globalised world. Modern Love Hyderabad, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is produced by Elahe Hiptoola and Nagesh Kukunoor, with the latter directing three of the six short films.
Of these, My Unlikely Pandemic Partner — starring Revathy and Nithya Menen — is my favourite. Noori (Nithya) leaves her home when her mother, Meherunissa (Revathy), objects to her marrying a Shia man. They are Sunni Muslims and her deeply religious mother cannot accept her choice. Six years later though, Noori and Meherunnissa are stuck in the same house in the wake of the sudden COVID-19 lockdown.
There are several short films set in the lockdown that have come out on OTT, and most of them have a similar premise — two characters who don’t get along, forced to live with each other due to the unprecedented circumstances. But thanks to the strong writing and wonderful performances, My Unlikely Pandemic Partner emerges as an enjoyable film on a strained mother-daughter relationship. Noori is an atheist and a teacher. Her mother is traditional and a great cook. Noori wears classy, casual clothes. Her mother wears shiny sarees and a burqa when going out. But Kukunoor doesn’t over-emphasise these differences to make a point. They are just two different Muslim women who have chosen lifestyles that work for them.
While the bitterness of the past almost always threatens to spill into the present, Noori and Meherunissa carve out a common ground between them — with Hyderabadi food, an overly paranoid neighbour (he wears a PPE to collect his biryani), a helpful autorickshaw driver, and conversation that ebbs and flows naturally. Revathy is amazing as Meherunissa. Whether she is weeping, confessing or hiding a smile, the actor’s minute expressions bring much nuance to the performance. Nithya complements the veteran star perfectly, and the chemistry they share on screen makes the film endearing, even if the ending is unnecessarily filmy.
Fuzzy, Purple and Full of Thorns, starring Aadhi Pinisetty and Ritu Varma as a live-in couple, is interesting and has several moments that sparkle. Uday (Aadhi) and Renu (Ritu) have a fairytale meeting at a temple. Her shoes go missing and a piece of broken coconut pierces her foot and she falls…only to be caught by Aadhi. While they come together in a somewhat traditionally cinematic episode, their life later has that easygoing flavour of modern relationships that Kukunoor captures very well. We see the story from Renu’s perspective, and since she is a cartoonist, her “mind voice” transforms into entertaining little cartoon episodes that interrupt the narrative.
A pair of fuzzy purple shoes that Renu finds in Uday’s closet becomes a point of conflict between the couple. Ritu has a flair for comedy, and she is a delight to watch as she goes round the bend trying to get the shoes out of her head. In comparison, Aadhi’s Uday comes off as one-note and undeserving of someone with Renu’s chutzpah. The ending borders on casting Renu into the annoying stereotype of the ever-suspicious wife, which is something of a disappointment. Still, with its lighthearted music and engaging tone, Fuzzy is quite fun to watch.
Why Did She Leave Me There…? is Kukunoor’s third in the series, and the weakest in the anthology. It opens with Rohan (Naresh Agastya), the CEO of a company, delivering the kind of trite motivational speeches that are dime-a-dozen on LinkedIn and make you roll your eyes instantly. He then goes to an orphanage to distribute gifts at his friend’s behest. As it turns out, this is the orphanage where he grew up.
Now in the opening scene, Rohan tells a bunch of starstruck employees that the one word that stands between them and success is “excuses”. I was hoping that Kukunoor would unpack this word or at least offer a new perspective to “success”, but that is not where this film wants to go. Instead, it is a sluggish story about a grandmother (Suhasini Maniratnam) who is forced to leave her grandson (the child actor is pretty good at emoting) at the orphanage. The title presents this as a mystery, but there is no mystery anywhere in the film, considering Suhasini’s character is coughing all the time. Why is this the question that has bothered Rohan all these years? Isn’t it obvious?
Kukunoor, so deft when dealing with middle class characters and modern relationships, struggles with creating the grandmother-grandson bond, choosing to fall back on songs to establish it. The Bakasura story that is supposed to act as a metaphor is repeated too many times for it to really have an impact. The Buddha statue at the Hussain Sagar is a constant presence through the twists and turns in Rohan’s life, but it is a passive piece in the landscape that only serves to remind us that this story is set in Hyderabad. This could have been an affecting drama about adoption and a grown man revisiting his childhood, but to borrow Noori’s analogy from My Unlikely Pandemic Partner, there is something missing in this biryani.
What Clown Wrote This Script!, directed by Uday Gurrala, is about standup comedian Vinnie (Malavika Nair) and video producer Ashwin (Abijeet Duddala), who come together to create a comedy show. Vinnie has a standup routine about the Telugu abbayi, which is a crowd favourite (I didn’t think it was particularly insightful or funny, to be honest). Ashwin, who is fed up of working on melodramatic TV serials, convinces her to work with him.
Malavika is impressive as Vinnie, delivering her punchlines in a dry, ironic tone and looking really comfortable onstage with the material. Ashwin doesn’t have as much colour as Vinnie, but Abijeet does okay. The film is neither a passionate full-blown romance nor a maddening on-and-off relationship. It is somewhere in between, and doesn’t make you care very much about the couple splitting or getting together again. The ending, though, is pretty relatable and puts a smile on your face.
About that Rustle in the Bushes, directed by Devika Bahudhanam, is about a young woman who goes on dates with men she meets on a matrimonial site. She lives with her parents, who know that she goes on dates but would rather not acknowledge it. Ulka Gupta’s Sneha yearns for love; the right man, though, never seems to come along. Naresh plays her overprotective parent — the phrase we might be looking for is ‘helicopter parent’ or even ‘toxic parent’ — but the actor pulls off the role with a kind of hilarity that makes you look past labels. The scene in which he is sitting with his long-suffering wife and making her eat fruits had me in splits.
It is not that Sneha takes his overbearing nature lying down, but the ending still urges us to look at the father’s invasive interest in his adult daughter’s life as a form of love. It is the father’s past mistake that pushes him to go to such lengths — but of what use is the realisation if it has only led to such an unhealthy obsession?
As it is, we are culturally conditioned to unquestioningly accept anything a parent does as love, and popular culture keeps adding to that burden. The script also guilt-trips and punishes Sneha for rebelling against this control. If only the film had put Sneha on a therapist’s couch 10 years down the line, I would have been very interested in listening to what she has to say about the episode.
Venkatesh Maha’s Finding Your Penguin is also about a young woman in search of love. Indu (Komalee Prasad) is a microbiologist, and there is so little romance in her life that even the bacteria in her petri dish are not reproducing. She has just broken up with her boyfriend and her girl gang is keen to set her up with someone she would like. But Indu has ideas of her own — she decides to take inspiration from the animal kingdom. Quite literally.
There are some fun bits and laugh-out-loud moments in Finding Your Penguin, and it reminded me of Geethu Unchained from the Malayalam anthology Freedom Fight. The non-judgemental tone to Indu’s explorations is especially refreshing. But unlike Geethu Unchained, which ends with a bang, this one has a tame ending that feels overexplained.
All the stories are about cis, heterosexual people, focusing on conventional relationships. In contrast, Modern Love Mumbai had a gay romance, self-love and an older woman-young guy equation among other things. Is Hyderabad not “modern” enough yet to have modern love stories with some diversity? I don’t quite know the reason.
While the cultural markers of food (and this sometimes feels too deliberate; nobody ever eats a packet of chips in these films), language and monuments are there in every film to tell us that yes, this is all happening in Hyderabad. But none of it makes us understand the city and its pulse better. The Hyderabadi identity, as projected in the anthology, seems pretty much interchangeable with anyone from an Indian metro.
Modern Love Hyderabad, like most Indian anthologies, is a mixed bag. It has some enjoyable films and some duds, and our wait for a truly satisfying and edgy Indian anthology continues.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.