In simple words, one man’s journey to get married is what this Voot Select series, The Great Weddings of Munnes, is all about. Abhishek Banerjee, known for his off-beat roles in films such as Stree and Ajeeb Daastaans, leads the series as a middle-class government employee, Munnes Kumar Yadav. Barkha Singh, who’s an OTT sensation, plays his love interest, Mahi. Here’s why we found Munnes and Mahi’s comic love story is worth a watch.
An interesting plot with twists and turns
Munnes has been facing romantic rejections since he was a teen, and even fails at securing a wife through the arranged marriage system. However, his romantic drought seems to end when Mahi, the granddaughter of a local MLA, falls in love with him for his honesty.
The two convince their respective families to agree to their marriage. But their wedding gets stopped mid-ceremony when Mahi’s family’s trusted astrologer predicts that Munnes would die if the two got married. The only way they could be married, according to him, was if Munnes married another woman and then got a divorce within 15 days.
A mad scramble ensues in the family to find Munnes a short-term bride.
Easy-breezy comedy
There are no dark or complex comic factors. The humour may not have you busting a gut but it is enough to make you chuckle and enjoy the 10 episodes, each spanning for about half an hour. Only in one episode do we see a hint of adult comedy.
Each member in Munnes family has idiosyncrasies that make them relatable. The situations they find themselves in are funny too. Munnes gets chased by a mob, spooked by a ghost, whacked by an elephant and nearly jailed as a drug smuggler during each of his wife-hunting trips. All of these incidents play out in a way that we do not feel bad for laughing at Munnes’ misery, much like in the popular TV show, Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah.
On point acting
The Great Weddings of Munnes has Abhishek shedding his terrifying Hathoda Tyagi avatar from Paatal Lok and slip into this bumbling, honest and simple character of Munnes. Barkha as Mahi is also a down-to-earth bride, whose only goal is to find a way to marry Munnes, which is so unlike her in Netflix’s webseries Masaba Masaba 2, where she played a snooty, rich bridezilla.
Aakash Dabhade is Suresh, Munnes’ best friend who is ready to sacrifice everything to help his buddy get the girl. Even Sunita Rajwar, Paresh Ganatra, Chetan Sharma and Sunil Chitkara, who play Munnes’ family members, do justice to their characters.
Catchy songs
The series has three songs, which you may find hard to get out of your head. Baaraat is the title track of the series, which plays during the opening credits. Composed by Amit Gupta and Arko, the song makes fun of the fact that Munnes is about to get married. Set with typical Indian wedding band tunes, the song sounds a lot like Emosanal Attyachaar from Dev D.
The second song of the show hits us when Mahi proposes marriage to Munnes, and tells him that she always wanted her partner to call her Kuku. This gives us a full romantic song sequence that takes place in Munnes’ imagination as he faints from the shock of being proposed to. The song, with vocals by Arko and Ankit Tiwari, is extremely catchy.
Aaina is the third track that deserves to be on every heartbreak playlist. Composed by Prini Siddhant Madhav and sung by Vikrant Bhartiya, Aaina gives us a flashback of the Mahi-Munnes relationship after they are forced to call off their wedding.
