'Modern Love Mumbai' review: the fight for love in the city of dreams sometimes falls short
There's something about Mumbai, and falling in love in Mumbai, as Amazon Prime's latest series shows viewers. Enclosed by the Arabian Sea and coined India's "city of dreams", romance underscores Mumbai. It is the home of Bollywood, known for its constant releases of romantic films; it is the inspiration behind many a sentimental novel.
So it's only fitting that the first international edition of Modern Love, inspired by the New York Times' long-running beloved column, is set in Mumbai.
Modern Love Mumbai's soulful set of six episodes spans dialect, religion, ethnicity, location, and class, capturing the vast melting pot that is the city. Characters speak in Indian languages, English, and — in one striking episode ("Mumbai Dragon") — Chinese. Like the first Modern Love series, the episodes feature an eclectic cast of characters and tales.
In the emotional — albeit clichéd — "Baai", Manzu (Pratik Gandhi) comes out as a gay man in a conservative Muslim household, seeking acceptance from his family and his grandmother, who he loves more than anyone. In "My Beautiful Wrinkles", a twenty-something man (Danesh Razvi) confesses his attraction to a woman in her sixties (Sarika), leading to her reckoning with past heartbreaks and finding herself once again. In one of the strongest stories, "Raat Rani", a cook (Fatima Sana Shaikh) is abandoned one morning by her husband (Bhupendra Jadawat). She is thrust into fighting for survival and coping with the loss of love. In "Cutting Chai", Latika (Chitrangda Singh) grapples with the monotony of life, her marriage to Daniel (Arshad Warsi), and her dreams of being a novelist.
What is shared within the anthology's stories is the fight for love, in a city and society that oftentimes makes the win difficult. In "I Love Thane", one woman (Masaba Gupta) texts back-and-forth with men she meets on dating apps, seeing them in between working as a freelance landscape architect. This is possibly the most overtly modern tale amongst the six, interweaving text bubbles and emojis, plush Mumbai living, and professional trials and tribulations. She meets a man who isn't on Instagram (the dream?), with whom she walks alongside in a part of town he loves, and shares awkward hugs while saying goodbye.
Similarly, "Mumbai Dragon", a must-watch episode in the mix, is an example of both external and intrinsic conflicts. Set within the Chinese-Indian community of India, a mother (Yann Yann Yeo) and son (Meiyang Chang) struggle with their relationship as Ming falls for an Indian girl whom his mother can't seem to approve of. This is also a poignant tale about complex identities and the life of immigrants.
Modern Love Mumbai is a solid attempt at depicting this uphill – and ultimately rewarding – battle for love, weaving together humor and melancholy with ease. Intertwined into episodes are staple symbols of showing love in Mumbai, namely music, chai, and food, while beautiful shots of an unfiltered city hover in the background. These powerful details accentuate the underlying "realness" of each tale. The tenderness with which each story is told is palpable, and perhaps the greatest reason to watch the anthology.
But the series often falls short of leaving its viewers satisfied. I found myself wondering what each story is trying to provide the viewer. The various plots sometimes feel inadequate, which isn't helped by pacing issues in a few of the episodes, punctuated by excessive flashbacks (namely within "Cutting Chai").
A picture of modern India and its modern love stories are offered but not wholly delivered. By the end of almost every episode, there is a nagging feeling of: what do I know now, that I didn't know before? Stories centered around love, more likely than not, offer bite-sized insights into the confusing world of experiencing, losing, and finding love. Here, however, there is still yearning.
The storyline and heartrending conclusion of "Raat Rani" fulfill this desire, with Lali standing as a symbol of immense strength and empowerment, even in the face of love lost. Shaikh's performance is a credit to this; she unabashedly cries, laughs, and expresses the effects of love, even when it comes to loving herself.
In the anthology, love does prevail, whether for oneself, another person, or Mumbai. And while "Baai" held some of the more cheesy lines, it also featured a dialogue that encapsulates the message Modern Love Mumbai attempts to give its audience: “Preventing love is also like spreading hate."
Each story is a letter to the emergence of love, and despite some clichés, this may be reason enough for any romantic to give it a chance.