Aap Jaisa Koi review: R Madhavan and Fatima Sana Sheikh's woke love story on patriarchy has Wes Anderson coded frames
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Aap Jaisa Koi Photograph: (X)
Filmmaker Vivek Soni's Aap Jaisa Koi, stands apart from regular Bollywood films on many accounts. At its core is a man who is unsure of himself, and thus shy to make friends with the opposite gender.
He is 42, a virgin and desperately in need of female company. R Madhavan's Shrirenu Tripathi is unlike a Bollywood hero, especially at a time when leading heroes flex their muscles and wield machetes in heavy-duty actioners. Filmmaker Vivek Soni's Aap Jaisa Koi, stands apart from regular Bollywood films on many accounts. At its core is a man who is unsure of himself, and thus shy to make friends with the opposite gender. The film has shy and conservative men pitted against liberal, free-thinking modern women. The premise holds promise, but does Aap Jaisa Koi deliver? Let's find out.
Plot of Aap Jaisa Koi
Shrirenu is a rare man in the present times. He teaches Sanskrit in a school in Jamshedpur where he gets bullied by his teenage students. At 42, he is still looking for a bride, is a virgin and secretly craves for female company. When he does fall in love with a woman way out of his league, it all seems straight out of a beautiful dream. Madhu Bose( Fatima Sana Sheikh) is 32, a French teacher who lives with her single mother and bunch of aunts and uncles in her maternal grandmother's house in Kolkata. Rings are exchanged soon after and you think, what could now go wrong now for them? Yet things go south, primarily because of Shri's bossy elder brother (Manish Chaudhary) who has set rules for women in the household. While he openly controls his wife, a bored housewife (Ayesha Raza) and a daughter who wants to study abroad, his thought process unwarrentedly also influences Shri and the way he perceives his partner.
What works and what does not
R Madhavan in a role that looks similar to Manu of his smash hit Tanu Weds Manu, shines. He is the man who can charm women with his soft words and cute smile. For decades, Madhavan's soft lover boy charisma has worked on women of all ages. Now, in his 50s, and playing a 40-something in Aap Jaisa Koi, Madhavan still manages to woo the viewers with his charm and simplicity. Certain moments when he is unsure, conscious and very shy as Madhu heaps compliments on him are truly special to watch.
Giving him company is Fatima Sana Sheikh who plays the hot French teacher with much ease. The age difference is stark and visible between the lead but the two actors rise above the limitations and deliver to their parts.
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Aap Jaisa Koi begins on a promising note about two diverse characters falling in love. Gentle, shy and conservative, Madhavan's Shri is real and also extremely bland and so when the gorgeous French teacher Madhu Bose falls head over heels for him, the audience is as bewildered as Shri is. You want to go along with the story that is being told, yet the unnecessary familial intervention makes the film middling. Here the hero is appalled at the idea of the heroine being a temptress. He is modern enough to be on a dating app, but judges the woman for being on one.
Aap Jaisa Koi is shot beautifully. Cinematographer Debojeet Ray captures North Kolkata and Jameshpur's old world charm well. The frames are very Wes Anderson coded, linear, structured and box-like. And while the actors and the premise are pretty, the film itself is middling and bland.
After a point, you want Madhu to move on from a rather boring and orthodox man like Shri. At some point, you want to shake his elder brother up and wake him from the era bygone where man and woman had defined roles.
Aap Jaisa Koi is woke. It tries to teach a lesson on gender and patriarchy amid a love story. It wants to do it subtly, yet the film is preachy and textbookish to fully be invested in.
Aap Jaisa Koi is streaming on Netflix.
