Boman Irani is best known for his performances in movies such as Munnabhai MBBS and 3 Idiots. With The Mehta Boys, 65-year-old Irani makes his debut as a writer and director, while also playing seventy-something Shiv Mehta.
In the largely Hindi-language film (with a bit of English and Gujarati), Irani and co-writer Alex Dinelaris explore a fractured father-son relationship. Shiv (Irani) and Amay (Avinash Tiwary) have a strained equation that is put to the test when they are forced to spend a weekend together. It’s a situation they both dread, but circumstances and some mishaps ensure that the duo find a way to get through the next few days.
Amay is a talented but diffident architect. Despite ample encouragement from his colleague and girlfriend Zara (Shreya Chaudhary) and boss (Siddhartha Basu), Amay lacks the confidence to share his opinion or his designs.
Every moment with his father puts Amay further on edge. In turn, the senior Mehta is unable to accept that his son is now a man. He goes around switching off the lights in Amay’s house and judges his crumbling apartment.
The Mehta Boys is out on Prime Video. Although the script alludes to the cause for the discord, it neither blames nor absolves either Mehta boy. Can a son ever stop being the belligerent and confrontational child seeking to come out from under his father’s shadow? When does a father stop being patriarchal, controlling and overly critical?
Alongside the complexity of a father-son dynamic, the drama also touches on grief, loss and the impact of the conflict between the men on the Mehta girls, including Amay’s sister Anu (Puja Sarup).
The writers build in certain motifs, such as the importance of legacy, a red sari and the changing Mumbai city – glass, steel and skyscrapers are viewed from the window of Amay’s old building. A magical realism element is at odds with focussed storytelling that explores a broken relationship in an intimate setting, where spaces carry the weight of the unsaid.
As a director, Irani hits the right notes with his co-stars, especially with Tiwary. He steadily builds a frustrating character who flits between flirtatious, coy, cowering and exasperated, whether with Zara in the boardroom or in his own living room.
As a widower in his twilight years, Irani delicately conveys the subtleties of a man confronting the erasure of his independence. Writer, director, producer and actor on his 116-minute debut feature – Irani wears all the hats with poise and executes his vision unassumingly and patiently.
Also read:
‘A film that speaks to the way I understand cinema’: Boman Irani on directing ‘The Mehta Boys’
