Who doesn’t love a sports movie, especially when the sport in question is cricket and there is an underdog to be rooted for? On that count Mr & Mrs Mahi, starring Rajkummar Rao and Janhvi Kapoor, delivers more or less.
But Mr & Mrs Mahi, directed by Sharan Sharma who reunites with Janhvi after Gunjan Saxena, is also a relationship film that is full of dropped catches and missed shots, with the two leads saving the film from being entirely forgettable.
Mahendra Aggarwal (Rajkummar), called Mahi, lives and breathes cricket but bungles up his selection for the state. He is banished by his fame-chasing father Hardayal (Kumud Mishra) to their sports goods shop where he spends a listless existence, never matching up to his father’s expectations or his brother’s fame.
Into this picture enters Mahima (Janhvi) — also called Mahi — a doctor who is well-loved but doesn’t have the agency to even speak about her achievements when they come to discuss an arranged marriage with Mahendra. Stuck in a profession chosen by her father and a deadbeat hospital job, Mahima agrees to marry Mahendra, impressed by his honesty, and the two find a common ground, and love, in their passion for cricket. Mahima faking acidity problems to go to bed early so she can wake up to watch India playing Australia is a cute moment.
When Mahima’s penchant for hitting sixes is accidentally discovered, she is pushed from living her father’s dream to pursuing her husband’s dream of becoming a professional cricketer. Of course, in the garb of ‘you are wasting your talent and deserve better’ is hidden Mahendra’s hopes of becoming famous as her coach and ultimately earning his father’s respect.
Trouble begins, both between the couple and plot-wise, when the film does an Abhimaan (remember Amitabh Bachchan’s envy of Jaya Bhaduri’s fame?) and the husband is left in the shadow of the wife’s limelight. Mahendra’s change from a loving husband to a patriarchal moron is as abrupt as his journey to redemption and is therefore not convincing enough. Just like one missed mention in an interview causes his downward spiral, one heartfelt conversation with his mother puts him back on track.
Mahima’s journey of self-discovery is equally unconvincing since she ultimately needs her husband’s apologetic words of encouragement to understand where her true passion lies. Even after she realises that her husband’s focus was on getting recognition for himself all along, she plays her best game only after he tells her to believe in herself.
Rajkummar is at his best in the first half as the bumbling son and doting husband. Janhvi does earnestness very well and pulls off Mahima’s naivete without coming across as dumb. They keep you invested despite the film's pacing issues which make certain sections seem interminable.
Mr & Mrs Mahi might have worked better if it was focused on the woman’s journey with and despite the men in her life. But while it does touch upon that, it shies away from blatant feminism. There was a little hope in the irony of Rajkummar complaining to his mother about her not understanding how it feels to do something for someone without expecting anything in return, but in spelling it out that hope is squashed, just like the rest of the film.
