‘Modern Love: Mumbai’ review: A slam-dunk of an anthology if ever there was one

With compelling performances that accompany these poetic yet truthful representations of modern-day love, the shorts arrive like a breath of fresh air and leave us with a guileless smile

After a long wait, we have a string of six shorts on a streaming platform, where all the segments shine with almost equal intensity. Inspired by stories that appeared in a New York Times column, the heartfelt series uses the open-minded Mumbai as the backdrop but the tales of love are not bound by the geography of the metropolis. The series is like a whiff of fresh air that crosses over and envelops you, unannounced. It caresses the skin, touches the heart, and leaves us with a guileless smile.

More importantly, unlike bitter experiences in the past, here a sense of artificiality doesn’t test you after a point. Nor do the contributing filmmakers underline the message with a bleeding pen.

It is not that the anthology express something that has not been said before. But by tweaking the same ingredients and garnishing them with riveting performances and relatable dialogues, the chefs, some of whom are masters, have served a flavourful dish that soothes the senses and leaves a sweet aftertaste.

In Alankrita Shrivastava’s  My Beautiful Wrinkles, Dilbar (Sarika) is grappling with guilt when a young man starts to stride into her heart, breaking her carefully-crafted defence. It is an interesting conversation between a seemingly-confident older woman and a boy unsure of how to sell himself to the world. We could feel the flame that is lit between them, get anxious when it threatens to become ablaze, but eventually feel good when it extinguishes the silent inferno that is raging inside Dilbar.

Alankrita loves to create strong female characters. At times, her characters threaten to become activists with placards, but here she puts her point across without making a show of it. The graceful Sarika effortlessly flows into the character of a modern-day grandmother who speaks the language of today, but perhaps struggles with emotions and values that have crossed the expiry date.

In one of the most poetic yet truthful representations of homo-erotic love, Hansal Mehta crafts the beautiful  Baai that explores the challenges of coming out in a seemingly-modern society that often keeps its real views on same-sex love in the closet.

Hailing from a traditional household, Manzu (Prateek Gandhi) is struggling to explain his sexuality to his family. His doting grandmother (Tanuja) doesn’t know about his preferences. Should he tell him? Like good food, are there no recipes to relationships as long as they are cooked in love? Mehta has carefully woven communal flare-ups, familiar concerns, and the anguish of not being understood into the narrative. However, the best part is the rhythm that he has achieved in the relationship between the singer Manzu and the chef (Ranveer Brar). Their passionate bonding over music and food is truly infectious.