Bollywood moral guide: no touching, only seeing

Pati Patni Aur Woh

Hindi (U/A)

Cast: Kartik Aryan, Bhumi Pednekar, Ananya Pandey

Director: Mudassar Aziz

Rating: 2/5

Three years into marriage, Kartik Aryan strays for some “spice”. Because wife Bhumi Pednekar is hot, loving, independent and sensible. In other words, men will be men. ‘Pati Patni Aur Woh’ latches on to the convenient phrase to normalise its total jerk of a hero.

Aryan, a small-town PWD engineer, is straitjacketed as the simple, harmless husband who is also susceptible to a roving eye. He soon gets an eyeful in the form of Ananya Pandey (ever in minis but never the vamp she is supposed to be). The Delhi girl is in Aryan’s town to look for a plot of land, but has her gaze fixed on him.

Aryan and his new squeeze go around shopping, sightseeing, bowling... but when it comes to sex, men will be Bollywood men. Guilt kicks in and monogamy prevails.

Aryan looks comfortable in yet another characteristic outing (what’s life without monologues!), but he is soon outwitted by Aparshakti Khurana, his 2 am friend. The two men share a chemistry that’s more crackling than the collective appeal of all the ‘wohs’ in the movie (love triangle is passe, this one can surely form a pentagon).

For a change, the women sport thicker skin and stronger spine than their men. But that doesn’t make ‘Pati Patni Aur Woh’ any more enjoyable than the 1978 original.