‘Mrs.’ Review: Sanya Malhotra Is Sublime in Arati Kadav’s Evocative Retelling
'Mrs.', based on Jeo Baby's 'The Great Indian Kitchen' retains the original's soul.
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“Lay out all my clothes,” a man orders as he gets ready for work. “Do you need help wearing your clothes too?” Richa (Sanya Malhotra) asks her husband Diwakar (Nishant Dahiya), her voice dripping with sarcasm. But he misses it, instead changing gears to make it seem flirtatious. To him, his demands seem natural, just a part of ‘married life’; to her, they seem incredulous.
Arati Kadav’s Mrs. is a portrait of the Indian household told through the lens of one newlywed couple and the wife’s efforts to fit in in the ‘new family’. It’s based on The Great Indian Kitchen, Jeo Baby’s evocative drama, and captures most of the film’s spirit albeit with a bit of sanitisation. But Kadav and Malhotra effuse Mrs. with an identity of its own.
Sanya Malhotra and Nishant Dahiya in a still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Richa and Diwakar first meet during a family meet-up typical of most arranged marriages – they shift to the roof for a heart-to-heart where Diwakar presents himself as a soft-spoken, genial man ready to build a life with the woman in front of him. But a tension lurks within the surface – everything seems too perfect, too squeaky clean to remain that way. Or perhaps patriarchy makes cynics out of all of us.
Every day Richa spends in Diwakar’s house seems to pass in a blur, from one 4 AM alarm to an endless array of chopped vegetables and back to the alarm. Repeated shots of clocks keep track of passing time but even their presence isn’t enough to offset the drudgery and monotony of a woman’s life in a patriarchal setting. It chips away at her, effectively stripping the film, and Richa, of spark and colour. It’s in choices like this where Kadav’s effect as a filmmaker is most evident.
Sanya Malhotra in a still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
The film constantly highlights the intermingling of the 'new’ and the ‘old’. The house houses (pardon me) two couples – Richa & Diwakar and the latter's parents.
When Richa attempts to help her mother-in-law (Aparna Ghoshal), she brushes her off. She rejects help from modern technology, not by choice – it would obviously make the task quicker – but because her husband doesn't like the taste of food made in a processor. The method of cooking changes the taste, which could be true, but the onus of putting up with these food preferences falls on the women.
In Laapataa Ladies, a woman is taken aback by the concept of cooking a dish she likes; one she stopped making because the people in her family didn't like it. Both films, in their conversations around food, make conjoined points – women’s desires are removed from their own labour, while others’ are included without much thought.
A still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Richa’s mother-in-law moves mechanically through the house in the early hours of the day – she places a mix of carom seeds and water next to her husband’s bed, removes his footwear and places it where his feet will inevitably land. It's labour that's been perfected over years and invisibilised with each passing day.
She turns this conditioning on to Richa – she expects her daughter-in-law to be a good cook and looks down at her habit of picking bits off of food.
The men in Richa’s life act in a mixture of entitlement and control. Like the women's labour, their servitude is expected. Richa’s father-in-law (an effective Kanwaljit Singh) says very little, he mostly walks around the house brooding. He says nothing when he's impressed but finds the words for snide remarks if he isn't.
Kanwaljit Singh in a still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Mrs. folds all these details into its fabric scene-by-scene, making it almost frustrating to watch. The discomfort of Richa’s life gets under your skin. The boisterous & bothersome uncle, the fault-finding aunt – everyone finds something to poke and prod at and try to ‘fix'.
Sanya Malhotra is at the centre of it all, slipping into the character with ease. She imbibes Richa’s exhaustion into the very way she stands – her body language changes from the rising tension; like a spring coiling tighter by the second.
Malhotra has proved her mettle as an actor consistently over the past few years and this film is no different. The only issue perhaps is the aforementioned sanitisation.
A still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
The Great Indian Kitchen is, in a way, a gritter film. Baby’s film is an eviscerating critique of patriarchy and the socio-religious context his characters exist in. In shifting the story from South India to Delhi, much of this conversation leaves the film.
While not as complex as the original, the film isn't completely surface level. In this conversation about labour, there are two other characters that exist in the periphery of this family’s existence. Their absence from the screen is not due to their role as secondary characters; that too is a result of systemic discrimination – caste discrimination to be specific.
A woman who comes over to their house to help clean offhandedly alludes to the family’s casteism. The family, while playing a part in this woman's oppression, do not hesitate to reap the fruits of her labour. Mrs. works best when it hones in on these microaggressions.
A still from Mrs.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
The cinematography does a brilliant job of capturing the journey of ‘food’ through the house – it is one of the film’s most crucial aspects. Dishes that start off as mouth-watering creations from the stove to the table, end up as leftovers scattered over the kitchen table that then log the sink’s murky water.
The background score leaves much to desire – it doesn't melt into the ‘background’ as much as it should. This is a film that places all its bets on ‘effect’; on how it makes the audience feel. It isn’t enough to put Richa’s distress on screen, films like Mrs. need to seep into a viewer’s conscience, enough to make them question the systemic cycles of abuse patriarchy perpetuates and its supporters uphold. With a score that keeps pushing you to feel a certain way, it strips the audience of the space they need for that exploration.
The ending sequence isn't nearly as effective either. In a film like this, moments of catharsis are supposed to be visceral – enough to drive a few to tears. A private moment of joy Richa creates in her kitchen earlier in the film is a better embodiment of that sentiment; of the freeing power dance has on her.
And yet, in the muffled tones of her father-in-law, the film builds tension – a horror of sorts – the harsh reality of her situation contrasted with the lyrical beauty of song & dance.
Mrs., despite its flaws, is an exploration of how violence against women can exist across a spectrum and how most of it stems out of ‘control’ – out a misplaced entitlement of one person over another by virtue of their position in society; a position granted to them based on an arbitrary set of rules.