Modern Love Mumbai — the primary Indian spin-off of rom-com anthology Modern Love, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video — opens with the identical phrases as its American counterpart: “Inspired by personal essays from The New York Times column Modern Love. Certain elements have been fictionalised.” But curiously, in contrast to the unique, Modern Love Mumbai would not reveal who wrote the columns the six episodes are impressed by. Why is it hiding the names of the authors? It begs the query: are these really Mumbai tales submitted by Indian readers of NYT? Or — enable me my cynical ponderings — are these world tales transplanted to an Indian context? That occurred to me at occasions as I noticed Modern Love Mumbai, extra so as a result of the episodes did not pull me in.

That’s as a result of most of its tales — every Modern Love Mumbai episode is standalone, because it’s an anthology — are humdrum. While some episodes begin off poorly and by no means get you on their characters’ facet, others start in a promising method solely to fade out finally. Many do not earn their insights, encompass clunky dialogues, or make superficial observations. And some cram an excessive amount of into their 40-minute runtimes. (I think about some chapters in subsequent week’s Love, Death + Robots season 3 will ship extra in about one-fourth the time.) Though there are individualistic failures — even famend palms in Vishal Bhardwaj, Hansal Mehta, and Shonali Bose falter, some greater than others — it is laborious to not look previous the guiding palms too.

While The New York Times, and Modern Love creator, director and government producer John Carney are concerned in some capability, Modern Love Mumbai is finally a manufacturing of Pritish Nandy’s banner. And it shares not simply among the identical issues as their Prime Video declare to fame, Four More Shots Please!, but additionally their makers. Pritish’s two daughters, Rangita Pritish Nandy and Ishita Pritish Nandy, are government producer and co-executive producer right here. Four More Shots Please! season 2’s author and director additionally get the ultimate Modern Love Mumbai episode to themselves. Instead of searching for new companions to make its rom-com anthology, Amazon merely turned to the parents already making a (frivolous surface-level) rom-com for it. Even platforms are partaking in nepotism now.

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Masaba Gupta, Ritwik Bhowmik in Modern Love Mumbai “I Love Thane”
Photo Credit: Amazon Prime Video

The bar is finally set very low on Modern Love Mumbai, and Little Things creator Dhruv Sehgal — probably the most inexperienced of his friends right here, in distinction to the aforementioned Bhardwaj, Mehta, and Bose — clears it not simply simply however correctly. His brief and the fifth episode “I Love Thane” seems to be actually good in entrance of the others, although it is solely as a result of the comparability is so stark. Through the point of view of a panorama designer in her mid-30s (Masaba Gupta) who’s realising she’s unfulfilled and incompatible with most males — till she possibilities upon a man from Thane (Ritwik Bhowmik) who works for the native authorities council — Sehgal and his co-writer Nupur Pai (Little Things season 3 and 4) contact upon what on-line relationship is like in a a lot more true sense than the surface-level Eternally Confused and Eager for Love.

There’s an exquisite and comical shot early into “I Love Thane”, the place two girls lock eyes as they drift off what are demonstrably two of the world’s worst dates. In a few seconds, Sehgal not solely succinctly reinforces the “men are s**t” philosophy that is taken maintain in our era, but additionally skewers the supposed “liberal” and “feminist” males who’re arguably worse than their polar opposites. “I Love Thane” does land in a typical rom-com groove after a degree, however it’s the small however deep insights Sehgal attracts that stand out. And importantly, Sehgal is unwilling to compromise on his imaginative and prescient for the sake of Western audiences — Modern Love Mumbai is as Indian dealing with, as it’s outward dealing with, I’d argue — in contrast to what Hansal Mehta does on his “Baai”, the second episode.

On “Baai”, when a personality namechecks a Bollywood actress, the subtitles translate it into Julia Roberts. But on “I Love Thane”, when characters deliver up neighbourhoods comparable to Thane, Bandra, and Naupada — they’re introduced as is within the subtitles. Sehgal expects audiences to comply with alongside, or learn up after they end the episode to completely perceive dialogues the place a personality complains to a different about making them “drive all the way to Thane.” This is the way it needs to be. After all, that is how Hollywood has handled the world. New York’s boroughs — not less than their names — are actually recognised globally. Even a Marvel film would not dumb itself down, when Captain America and Spider-Man commerce barbs over Queens and Brooklyn. And we should not be doing it both.

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Pratik Gandhi in Modern Love Mumbai “Baai”
Photo Credit: Amazon Prime Video

Mehta’s “Baai” does have just a few issues going for it. The private spotlight for me is an early one-shot in a automotive — the director reunites together with his Scam 1992 cinematographer Pratham Mehta on Modern Love Mumbai — through the Bombay riots, which is really epic and harrowing. It jogged my memory of Children of Men’s automotive sequence, and some of the memorable sequences I’ve seen just lately. “Baai”, written by Mehta and debutant Ankur Pathak, will get off to a pleasant begin, however it runs out of steam. Mehta follows a homosexual Muslim man (Pratik Gandhi), a minority in a minority — not the primary LGBTQ+ story for the director, he additionally made the Manoj Bajpayee-led Aligarh.

“Baai” does every part we have come to anticipate from tales about LGBTQ+ people in repressed societies — there is a very actual inclusion of how violence is extra prevalent in homosexual males — however it drifts off owing to its tangents. That’s clear from its title, which refers back to the protagonist’s grandmother. But the larger downside for Modern Love Mumbai episode 2 is that the actors — celeb chef and restaurateur Ranveer Brar performs Gandhi’s boyfriend and future husband — aren’t plausible as homosexual males. The wedding ceremony scene is 👎🏼 and the intimacy scenes are downright laughable. It’s like they’re smushing their faces and our bodies in opposition to one another, moderately than truly embracing and kissing each other.

Mehta additionally tries to put meals on the centre of his story — the grandmother is understood for her cooking, and Brar’s character is a chef — however it’s misplaced in the midst of every part else and by no means comes into its personal. Vishal Bhardwaj does significantly better in centring his story, “Mumbai Dragon”, round meals. Like Mehta, Modern Love Mumbai episode 3 — written by Bhardwaj and debutant Jyotsna Hariharan — focuses on outsiders. In his case, Chinese-origin Indians who proceed to be handled as the opposite, regardless of struggling via greater than most Indians. (The story is therefore a mixture of Hindi, Cantonese, Punjabi, and English.)

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Though Meiyang Chang’s wannabe playback singer will get extra of the plot, it is his mom (Yeo Yann Yann) who will get to shine on Modern Love Mumbai. Kudos to her for taking up position that is largely in Hindi — she will’t sound like a pure, however she does her finest. Yann’s mom is holding onto her grownup son via meals, as that is how she expresses her love. While “Baai” is partly about how meals is de facto about love, “Mumbai Dragon” does a greater job of conveying that. In Mehta’s story, it fades into the background. Baai is meant to be a killer chef, however it’s not a part of the image — it is previous. Bhardwaj ends his with an ideal meals shot, which conveys greater than dialogues or actions might.

There are generic components to Bhardwaj’s Modern Love Mumbai episode as nicely. Not solely does it meander within the center, it is feeding into an overly-optimistic self-fulfilling picture. Bollywood the dream machine has all the time appreciated to gas its personal mythos, although I anticipated extra from somebody like Bhardwaj. I wasn’t anticipating a lot from Shonali Bose (The Sky Is Pink) and Alankrita Shrivastava (Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare), and regardless of that, their tales closely under-deliver.

“Raat Rani” — Modern Love Mumbai episode 1, written by Nilesh Maniyar (The Sky Is Pink) and have debutant John Belanger — is the one one which’s about folks falling out of affection, not in it. The huge stumbling block for Bose’s episode is that Fatima Sana Shaikh’s Kashmiri accent is outright hilarious. On high of that, you’ll be able to’t relate to the characters from the start as a result of the beginning is so abrupt. But extra importantly, “Raat Rani” would not earn any of its scenes. Wholly disjointed, it merely jumps from one factor to the opposite. Bose needs “Raat Rani” to be a girls empowerment story at its coronary heart, however main moments of development occur off display.

This can also be a difficulty with “My Beautiful Wrinkles” — written by Shrivastava, its title and Mumbai geography can also be misplaced — the place a separated grandmother (Sarika) is propositioned, by a younger man (Danesh Razvi) she’s tutoring, in a manner that ought to represent sexual harassment. Despite the racy overture, Modern Love Mumbai episode 4 is puerile all through, nearly as if it is ashamed to really dive into what it is about. “My Beautiful Wrinkles” fizzles out in a short time, and ends in a tacky, cop out trend, which betrays that it had nothing to say of worth. It additionally has the clunkiest dialogues of any episode on this Prime Video anthology, with its characters saying issues which might be discovered on coasters and t-shirts. It’s a case of Shrivastava arising brief in each division.

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Arshad Warsi, Chitrangda Singh in Modern Love Mumbai “Cutting Chai”
Photo Credit: Amazon Prime Video

That leaves what I known as the nepotism story, as it is the one made by Four More Shots Please! season 2 director Nupur Asthana and author Devika Bhagat. “Cutting Chai”, starring Chitrangda Singh and Arshad Warsi as a pair of their forties, romanticises problematic points of Indian males. I’ve nothing extra to say, as a result of that is principally all the episode. Except the sixth and closing Modern Love Mumbai episode flips within the closing 9 minutes, because it makes an attempt to deliver all of it collectively and ascribe which means to all the sequence in a corny trend.

Out of nowhere, Modern Love Mumbai destroys its anthology aesthetic on “Cutting Chai”, with characters from the primary 5 episodes briefly taking on. It’s not as weird for individuals who’ve seen Modern Love, as a result of the unique did the identical, as a good friend knowledgeable me. That would not make it any much less abrupt although. Some scenes repay on earlier resolutions, however with others, it is like revisiting previous trauma. It’s a considerably becoming conclusion and, in a manner, the worst attainable finish, as a result of by recapping and giving us tiny epilogues, Modern Love Mumbai solely serves to remind us how poor the anthology is.

All six episodes of Modern Love Mumbai are launched Friday, May 13 at 12am IST on Amazon Prime Video in India and world wide.