12 years ago Kavya Ganeshan (Vidya Balan) a dentist, had chosen to elope with her Bengali musician boyfriend Anirudh (Pratik Gandhi) from her home in Ooty.
The two are married and live a comforting yet boring existence with each other in Mumbai. The only communication between the two is stilted, as Anirudh wonders why has Kavya turned Vegan, as he serves her baingan posto( a Bengali Eggplant dish) and asks the other about where the anti-allergens are or turns the AC down. Kavya and Anirudh have not fought, argued, laughed, or even had any physical contact in the last five years.
Kavya thinks aloud to her colleague as to why women never tell men what they want and walk away from their loveless, sexless, and meaningless marriages To which her colleague says “Sometimes silence spells success.”
But Kavya and Anirudh both it seems have found love and excitement elsewhere. Kavya is having an affair with a New York-based photographer Vikram( Sendhil Ramamurthy. “Love is like toothpaste, brushing your teeth together is the ultimate form of intimacy”, tells Vikram to Kavya, explaining how every relationship comes with pressures and you need to squeeze everything out to make it work.
As the two go house hunting, Vikram wonders why she does not come to New York with him. She gives him several reasons why Mumbai is home, but also the fact that she has yet to tell her husband that she is having an affair. What’s stopping her? Why can’t she break away, since there is nothing left in their marriage?
Anirudh who now runs his father’s cork business, has also been having an affair with an aspiring actress Nora(Illeana D’Cruz) for the past two years. He is yet to tell Kavya, which makes Nora, anxious and needy.
However, when Kavya’s grandfather dies, Anirudh who has never been accepted by her family or even met them since marriage, decides to accompany her. But despite the solemnity of the occasion and Kavya’s heated exchange with her father, the couple find their comfort level.
As they get drunk and dance to the 90’s hit “bin tere sanam”, at one of their old haunts, Kavya finds herself laughing at Anirudh’s bland jokes and he is warming up to his wife’s recklessness. Back in Mumbai, the spark between them comes alive, the intimacy is back in their marriage and Kavya is back to eating her Chicken 65.
But what happens when their infidelities are known, what was it that made them stray or can they find their way back to each other?
Directed by Shrisha Guha Thakruta “Do Aur Do Do Pyaar”, is a bittersweet rom-com. Humorous yet cynical seen through the eyes of a couple who seem totally in sync with each other, but are also out of it. Is it the preservation of the institution of marriage over individual needs? Do couples forget to communicate their needs to the other and blame the invisible contract of marriage for it?
Vidya Balan and Pratik Gandhi make a delightful onscreen couple, bringing alive the quirkiness, eccentricities as well as the complexities of their characters.
Pratik Gandhi’s flair for comedy and his deadpan humor are infectious. Vidya Balan’s vivacity and the natural ease with which she slips into character come to the fore again.
Do Aur Do Pyaar is bittersweet as much as it is fun and is led by the brilliance of Vidya Balan and Pratik Gandhi.
3/5 stars
