‘Picture This’ movie review: Simone Ashley and Hero Fiennes Tiffin fail to make this romantic comedy work

Ninth Mandala studio struggles with traditional values and modern romance in ‘Picture This’, now on Amazon Prime Video.

Ninth Mandala is a portraiture studio in Hackney run by Pia Jaswani (Simone Ashley) and her gay best friend, Jay (Luke Fetherston), who share a strict distaste for passport photographs. They want to capture light and play with it through the lenses but in a world that prioritises instant sharing, their analogue studio seems to be heading for bankruptcy. With no romantic prospects in sight and a looming 30th birthday, Pia feels confused and lost but is relieved to have Jay’s shoulder to cry on. Though sarcastic and painfully straightforward, he is arguably the strongest pillar in her life.

As preparations for Pia’s younger sister Sonal’s (Anoushka Chadha) month-long wedding festivities kickstart, the photographers are roped into a maze of traditions guarded by hypocritical morals and caricaturish pandits. One such pandit predits that Pia is set to find her soulmate in five dates. 

As we tag along we meet Sid (Asim Chaudhry), a ‘loaded nepo-baby’ who is allergic to human touch, thinks bollywood is tacky and is determined to not let anyone take a dump in his house. Naturally, Pia floods his bathroom. The next couple of dates end in similar mishaps — though funny on paper, they do not seem to elicit laughter when played out on the screen. Their rigidity in trying to stick to some popular tropes and fulfilling some other pop-culture prophecies makes them contrived and slightly exhausting to get through.

We are put out of misery when her high-school boyfriend and the only person she has been in love with Charlie (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) runs the mill as the best man at her sister’s wedding — their awkward conversations and tense eye-contact enliven a glimmer of hope for a layered romantic journey. However, our hopes are quickly dashed and the director provides a comfortable solution to her troubled professional life. With what seems to be the blueprint in romantic-comedies and coming of age films lately, social media is used to resurrect her business and though she seems to have resolved her questions, the audience is left looking for closure.

While Simone Ashley and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are convincing in their roles, they do not enjoy enough room to stretch their acting muscles.

Ever since Harry professed his love to Sally on New Year’s Eve, in about 137 words to be precise, monologues in the third act of a romantic-comedy have become a staple for fans of the genre. However, Picture This fails to placate the audience with this convenience — Pia’s monologue is interrupted by Charlie, who is busy on his phone, and like a rom-com for the social media ages, it morphs into a bland conversation that feels plagiarised out of an average Joe’s texts to their online friend. We do not know how long he takes to order a sandwich or whether she finds his bushy brows amusing; by the end of 101 minutes, we know as much about Pia and Charlie as we did in the beginning. The movie does not attempt to sweep you off your feet or evoke a yearning for love, it is merely interested in hitting the right notes of relatability so that you do not rush to pick up your phone and mindlessly scroll through social media or play Subway Surfers.

Picture This is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video