Rajeev Masand – movies that matter : from bollywood, hollywood and everywhere else

September 30, 2011

Cast: Jagrat Desai, Sasha Goradia, Vinay Pathak, Riya Sen, Sushmita Mukherjee, Darshan Jariwala

Director: Deepa Sahi

Tere Mere Phere is a loud and exaggerated comedy whose opening scene sets the mood and the tone for the roughly ninety minutes that follow. A man and woman seated beside each other on a flight get into a squabble over hogging a common armrest. It leads to something of a riot in the cabin when other passengers join in, throwing bags at each other, spilling food all over the place, and generally creating such a nuisance that even the pilots have to ditch control of the plane so they can try to break up the fight.

Actress-turned-director Deepa Sahi helms this awful film that tests your threshold for pain as it goes about its business trying to make you laugh at its pedestrian humor. The film is centered on a pair of newlyweds who find themselves getting on each other’s nerves – and ours – as they traverse the gorgeous Himachal landscape in a luxury trailer. The honeymooners (played by newcomers Jagrat Desai and Sasha Goradia) bicker endlessly through the journey, smashing crockery when they’re exasperated, and throwing mud at each other’s faces. Watching their romance turn sour, Vinay Pathak, playing a fellow passenger who’s hitched a ride with the couple, gets cold feet about eloping with his own lover, played by Riya Sen.

The film has no script to speak of, merely a string of arguments and quarrels in place of a story. To add to that, the performances are so embarrassing, it’s as if the four principal players were competing in a championship for bad acting. Tere Mere Phere offers no great insights into man-woman relationships, and neither are the couple’s clashes in any way amusing.

On the upside, there is some eye-pleasing cinematography of the Himachal landscape; and the only interesting character is the teenage brother of the male lead, who appears wiser than his years…and wiser than every other character in the film, in fact.

I’m going with one out of five for Deepa Sahi’s Tere Mere Phere. Carry cotton to protect your eardrums from the shrieking, shouting, and incessant arguing.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)