Rating: 2.5/5 Presenter: My Group Production: Millennium Entertainment Producer: Sarita Mulgund Direction: Aditi Deshpande Story: Mahendra Agashe Camera: Chandrashekhar Ayyer Music: Hrishikesh Kamekar Cast: Mahendra Agashe, Ketaki Thathhe Movie Review by: Chetana Gavkhadkar Panchal

The foundation of marriage has declined over the decades and today we find the problem of broken marriages is getting precedence.

Divorce rates have increased gradually and as a result of this the children from affluent families of separated parents have to undergo a lot of trauma. Debutant director Aditi Deshpande, handles these issues in her film ‘Mee Mann Ani Dhruv’ and succeeds in getting the message across the audience.

Debutant Mahendra Agashe(Ranjeet)- the writer of the film, who plays a principled journalist, is a complete family man, loves his wife Mann(Ketaki Thatte) and son Dhruv(Dhruv Pendse). Trouble starts in their happily married life, when the wife starts having career aspirations and with the influence of her corporate climber friend (Smita Tambe) takes up a job in far place-Bangalore, away from her husband and child.

The husband is broken hearted but concentrates on his passion of writing and turns a successful writer. His only friend philosopher and guide is a poet Nagrik(Satish Pulekar), whom Ketaki resents as good for nothing. But one particular situation changes her perspective. Does she return to her husband and son? Does she move ahead with her career plans? Will Dhruv’s father be a successful single parent?

Watch this simple and unassuming film to know the answers. There are good performances from debutant Mahendra Agashe and Ketaki Thatte (Galgale Nighale), which makes this film watch able, although you have seen such subjects in films made by Basu Bhattacharya and festival gems like Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Scenes From A Marriage’.

The supporting cast of Satish Pulekar, Smita Tambe and many first time actors support ably. The boy Dhruv Pendse is a complete natural. The dialogues by Amol Shetge are good but tend to be too philosophical at certain occasions.
Hrishikesh Kamerkar’s music is soothing albeit only two songs in the background.The cinematography by Chandrashekhar Ayyer is not very razzle dazzle but focuses on the actor’s expressions, rather than camera movements and the film has been shot guerilla style inside a bungalow, with not many outdoor locations.

The editing by Amit Pawar is engaging though the film is sluggish in pace and the audience might lose the patience to see a long drawn film. Overall, director Aditi succeeds in portraying today’s nuclear families, where a working woman can be ambitious and career minded and can even sacrifice her family to achieve her dreams.

Only a woman director could have handled this subject with rare sensitivity and Aditi does that.