Rating: ★★★ ½ Banner: Bhupat Bodar Enterprises, Amol Production Producer: Praveen Thakkar, Director: Mrinal Kulkarni Story: Mrinal Kulkarni Screenplay: Manisha Korde Cinematography: Amalendu Choudhary Cast: Sachin Khedekar, Mrinal Kulkarni, Pallavi Joshi, Sunil Barve, Suhas Joshi, Mohan Agashe, Smita Talvalkar, Neha Joshi, Vidyadhar Joshi, Sidharth Chandekar. Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

A marriage ceremony is usually a happy event. It’s only the living together with understanding in the post marriage period, is all that important to make the couple happy. Today, we hear about rising number of divorce cases, taking place soon after marriage or sometimes even after spending over 10-15 years together. In some cases, it is just a mutual consent between the couple keeping friendly relations, after their divorce; just to keep their children happy. But, does that make the children really happy?

In some cases, either the wife or the husband is away pursuing their career. Among today’s young lovers even before marriage, there are a few break ups. The new trend especially among girls is to postpone the marriage; till they find a suitable match. Till then, live-in-relationship is preferred by them.

In comparison, the people of old generation, who try their best to keep such aggrieved couples together, consider themselves lucky to find their suitable partner and living with them with perfect understanding, throughout their life. But, how is it affecting the young generation, comprising of children? How are they looking at marriage? This is what actress turned director Mrinal Kulkarni has tried to show through her latest released film ‘Prem Mhanje Prem Mhanje Prem Asata’.

Dr.Rohit Phadnis (Sachin Khedekar) is a reputed Doctor in Pune, running his OPD in his own bungalow. His career oriented Astro-Physicist wife Pradnya (Pallavi Joshi) has preferred to migrate to USA after divorcing her husband, leaving him in the company of two children. Living in the same area is Anushree (Mrinal Kulkarni) with her mother-in-law (Suhas Joshi) and two daughters Piya and Ria. Her husband Kedar (Sunil Barve) has deserted her for the past four years. Yet, Anushree’s mother-in-law having a soft corner towards her daughter-in-law, prefers to live with her, taking good care of her grand-daughters; while Anushree is busy running her own florist’s shop.

Dr.Rohit’s and Anu’s children are studying in the same school. One day, while Piya is injured during her basketball match in the school, she is attended by Dr.Rohit. And that incident brings both Rohit and Anu together. While Dr. Rohit still maintains good relationship with his ex-wife, like a good friend, regularly communicating over phone; Anu doesn’t want to see the face of her husband, who has deserted her. But, Kedar is regularly in touch with his daughters over phone, especially his elder daughter Piya (Asmita Joglekar).

At a time when Dr.Rohit and Anu come closer; Kedar returns back home to drop his mother and daughters from a ceremony and so does Pradnya at Rohit’s place , to attend her brother’s wedding. The relationship between Dr.Rohit and Anu reaches a stage, where both of them have to take a crucial decision. Rohit is firm on his decision and suggests Anu to take her own decision; suggesting that he would always welcome her in his life. In the climax scene, Writer-Director Mrinal takes her bold decision.

As a debutant Director, Mrinal does have certain limitations; but, her sensible script and a desire to send across a strong message with the help of realistic characters helps her to make her presence felt, both as an actress and a director. However, the screenplay by Manisha Korde could have been much more interesting to create the desired impact through few important situations present in the script. She has managed well to take that sudden twist during the interval ; but barring that she has not used the shifts during important sequences skillfully. The wedding ceremony of Pradnya’s brother, has been used just namesake. Similarly, the character of Kedar hasn’t been highlighted much, to indicate the reason for deserting Anu. It is only the fine performances from the artistes, makes you ignore such minor lapses in screenplay.

As a director, Mrinal shows her concern for children who are witness to such estranged relationship of their parents. She clearly shows it through their emotions. At the same time, she shows the sufferings of a woman who has been deserted by her whimsical husband. In that climax scene, she literally stands up to speak up for all such women, who helplessly welcome their husbands back home, in spite of being deserted by them for years. In the same scene, she questions, whether a husband would welcome his wife with the same fervor, when his wife returns back home after staying away for years, deserting her family?

At the same time, she also shows an elderly couple, living with perfect understanding through the characters of her parents played by Mohan Agashe and Smita Talwalkar. Last but not the least, she has presented her younger sister’s ( Neha Joshi) character so perfectly, showing the trend of break ups between young couples even before marriage. In short, she has tried her best to define ‘love’ and its relevance to marriage in her own style. And that really makes this film a worth watch for all age groups.

Excellent photography by Amalendu Choudhary, good music, meaningful lyrics, sensible dialogues and above all, the wonderful performances by all the artistes, gives an artistic touch to this thought provoking film.