Musafir Cafe review: Vikrant Massey’s slow-burn romance proves timing is everything in love

Vikrant Massey’s Musafir Cafe, a slow romance drama, comes at a time when there is anger on the streets of India and spy thrillers and murder mysteries are dominating screens- big and small. The eight-part series, produced by Massey, who also plays the lead in the show, takes a practical approach to modern-day relationships, where love alone is not enough to make a relationship work. It reiterates that timing is everything, and that two right people can drift apart if the timing is not right. Created and written by Sharanya Rajgopal and based on Divya Prakash Dubey’s novel of the same name, Musafir Cafe is refreshing, real and breaks the clutter of action thrillers that have been releasing of late.

What’s Musafir Cafe about?

Chander (Massey) is a software engineer working in Bhopal, away from his family in Delhi. The man is an emotional being, always dreaming of a happy family and a slow life in the mountains. His calm meets the chaos of Sudha (Vedika Pinto), a divorce lawyer who is fiercely independent and wants to build a comfortable life for her mother. While Chander and Sudha are different as chalk and cheese, they are also each other’s cheerleaders.

Completing the triangle is Preeti (Mahima Makwana), a wanderlust who has made a life with Chander in the hills years after Sudha has walked out of it. But has Chander found closure from his past relationship? The eight-part series is set in Bhopal and Mussorie and narrates Chander’s story spanning over 8 years.

What works and what doesn’t

Love is complicated, a fact that is constantly reiterated in Musafir Cafe. The show highlights that falling in love is easy; sparks fly, you end up having the best time with each other. However, that alone cannot make a relationship last. The eight episodes beautifully highlight that often relationships are messy and complicated, despite two people being deeply in love with each other.

Massey, who turns producer with this series, plays Chander with absolute earnestness. The cehmistyry that that he shares both with Pinto and Makwana feels organic. The women play their parts well, even with Makwana putting in the right amount of restraint to her character, Preeti. A woman who is aware of her man’s past and is patient enough to wait for him to get closure, no matter how long it takes.

Musafir Cafe also highlights the conflicts that urban, career-oriented women have to go through, where they take responsibility of their own family and thus, often, resist marriage. The beauty of Musafir Cafe is that no one is wrong. The three characters are all strong individuals who want to make things right for their partners.

While Musafir Cafe is an easy, breezy romance, it, on many occasions, gives a sense of Deja Vu of Massey’s previous show Broken But Beautiful.

The supporting cast comprising Adil Hussain, Loveleen Mishra, Anubha Fatehpuri, Rajeev Siddhartha, and Sadiya Siddiqui only enable the core story, but the makers never delve into something deeper about these characters in the show. Wish they had.

Musafir Cafe could have also been a movie; it would have had the same impact.

Final Verdict

Love is perhaps the most favoured genre in India. While most shows and films talk about the process of falling in love, not too many address the complexities of modern-day relationships. Musafir Cafe is real and takes a practical approach at relationships. It ends at a point which opens up possibilities of a sequel. Let’s hope the sequel- if it is made- creates a similar impact on viewers.

Musafir Cafe is streaming on Netflix.