'Modern Love Hyderabad' Review: Nithya Menen-Revathy's Short is a Winner

After Modern Love Mumbai, the first Indian iteration of the hit series Modern Love, comes Modern Love Hyderabad. Six stories inspired by a column in The New York Times are woven around staples of the City of Pearls. With Hyderabadi cuisine being as famous as it is, food (and ample heart) finds its way into one of the best shorts in the anthology, My Unlikely Pandemic Dream Partner.

My Unlikely Pandemic Dream Partner

When Noori (Nithya Menen) and her mother Mehrunissa (Revathy) are ‘stuck’ together because of the COVID lockdown, they’re forced to confront the quiet resentment that has been festering between them for more than half a decade and also, come to terms with the love they have for each other.

After Noori's decision to marry her partner leads to a disagreement (since he's a Shi'a Muslim), the mother-daughter duo grow apart. However, through delicious food like marag, haleem, and biryani, they unpack their baggage. While the pacing is a little slow, this short is the best of the six with Nithya and Revathy giving heartwarming and excellent performances.

Both actors can convey emotions with looks alone and seamlessly mold themselves into the characters and emotions they’re assigned.

Fuzzy, Purple and Full of Thorns

Sometimes, on-screen, we see relationships that exist in a binary of perfect and toxic but the second short Fuzzy, Purple and Full of Thorns lives up to its name and delivers exactly that. Uday (Aadhi) and Renuka (Ritu Varma) fall in love after a chance meet-up but a pair of fuzzy, purple slippers throws a wrench in the mix.

The story, however, has full focus on Renuka, a delightfully imperfect protagonist– she’s sometimes unreasonable, leans into her insecurities, and even forms an (illogical) image of her boyfriend’s ‘ex’ based purely on an inanimate object.

The short is simple and comic and shows a real understanding of ‘modern love’ and even the expectations that parents put on their kids as they learn to support their decisions.

Why Did She Leave Me There?

One of the best performances of the entire series is that of Suhasini as a grandmother raising her two grandchildren alone.

Even when the screenplay slows down and threatens to become mundane, Suhasini tugs at your heart strings to pull you back in.

Advitej Reddy plays the immature and adorable Ramulu with ease, matching steps with Suhasini on-screen.

While the cast consisting of Naresh Agastya, Padmaja Lanka, and Manjusha Chivukula Krishna, among others all complete the parts they are assigned, the story’s true essence lies in Suhasini’s life and choices. The story starts off dull though and is one you will have to decide to stick with to get to its real core.

What Clown Wrote This Script!

This short’s name also delivers in its execution and is perhaps the one question I had about the short. The story about a television producer and a stand-up comedian deciding to create Seinfeld-esque magic on screen is interesting only as a premise. While Malavika Nair looks the part of Vinnie, the comedic bits are accurate but rarely funny.

This short had a lot of potential but leaves a lot to be desired and needs a much stronger script to work but as it stands, is just another short in the wide sea of OTT anthologies.

About That Rustle in the Bushes

My first reaction to reading the title was to wonder if they had snuck in a thriller into an anthology about love…and I wasn’t entirely wrong. Sneha (Ulka Gupta) is looking for love and finds it when she least expects it but along the way, she meets a host of different people.

The short’s casting is effective including Ulka as Sneha and VK Naresh as her father, Sreedhar, and Divyavani as her mother, Jyothika since they work together so effortlessly that it's instantly believable that they're a family. However, an overprotective parent undercut by ‘good intentions’ is one of my least favourite tropes. Even so, the story almost seems shy to focus on one message, shifting between condemning an act and later justifying it.

Watch the short for Ulka’s earnest performance as Sneha as she navigates her dating life and also for the underlying message of how guilt manifests in irrational ways, especially when it comes to love and family.

Finding Your Penguin

The Modern Love Hyderabad anthology, full of its highs and lows, ends on a high with the final installment Finding Your Penguin. A young woman in Hyderabad, Indu (Komalee Prasad) finds a new approach to dating by comparing her dates with the ways animals mate– from a praying mantis (hilarious) to a penguin.

Does her unique method work? Or does she end up surprising herself? Watch to find out. And you must, because Indu’s quest is intriguing and fascinating, and oftentimes hilarious.

Her interactions with her friends Subha (Priyanka Kolluru), Ayesha (Pavani Karanam), and Shrilekha (Bhavana Sagi) will perhaps remind you of ones you’ve had with yours, in that they’re authentic.

My Unlikely Dream Partner, Fuzzy, Purple and Full of Thorns, and Why Did She Leave Me There? (my top three) are all directed by Nagesh Kukunoor while Devika Bahudhanam directs About That Rustle in the Bushes, Venkatesh Maha has directed Finding Your Penguin and What Clown Wrote This Script! is directed by Uday Gurrala.

Verdict

Modern Love: Hyderabad leaves little of the city unexplored (especially parts of the city the people outside it see)– be it the burgeoning stand-up comedy scene, the night life, the food, or the people. If anything, the anthology is a tribute to Hyderabad. While it has its hits and misses, the show has heart and the mood shifts with each short, bringing some much-needed variety.

It’s interesting to see the series not just focus on ‘romantic love’ and explore much outside it. The idea of ‘romance’ being the epitome of love is dysfunctional and outdated and Modern Love Hyderabad is aware. Even so, the show is rarely brave and sticks to basic plots– in that it perhaps falls short of its Mumbai and US counterparts.