Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty Is  Delightfully  Pert  Precocious  &  Progressive

Miss Shetty  Mr Polishetty(Now Running  In  Selected Theatres)

Starring Anushka  Shetty, Naveen Polishetty

Written & Directed  by Mahesh Babu Pachigolla 

Rating: *** ½ (3  and  a half stars)

A heroine who  has crossed  the traditionally marriageable  age, doesn’t want to marry , but wants to be  a mother. A  hero who is a standup comedian  and doesn’t quite know how sperm  donation works but is  willing to  learn.

This is  not the first film on  a sperm donor who in the words of the group Foreigner, wants to know what  love is. But damn, the lady only wants his semen and love can go fly a kite.

This  a strangely  heady  brew of unorthodox theme  and  conventional storytelling. There are  doting mothers  and  supportive best friends. But they somehow seem so much more cuddlesome than usual.Veteran actress Jaya Sudha as  the heroine’s mother  leaves  a lasting impact although she  exeunts early.

 And  speaking of best friends,  normally they are a screenwriting convenience /prop for the  lead pair  to say things that we  otherwise won’t hear.Not here. Abhinav Gomatamas  and  Sonia Deepti as  the hero and heroine’s best friend have a life of their own, although we don’t really get to know what it is.

The focus,in this handsomely mounted rom-com  about a master chef who wants to be impregnated without the accompanying headaches,  and a stand-up comedian who says yes  on the sperm of  the moment, is on Sidhu and Anvitha , the former  played with  charm and vigour by Naveen  Polishetty(who is rapidly proving himself  the Govinda of Telugu cinema)   and  the  latter with a reined-in haughtiness  by  Anushka Shetty(who has  nothing to prove, and she is  in hurry to prove anything anyway).

 Outwardly the two are as  different as noodles  and fried  brinjals. It is in the way the two characters  run into each other and   then discover  a common ground that the narration seeks and finds  its centre.

The  scenes  between   Shetty and Polishetty crackle  with a  finger-snapping  wit  and sassiness.Polishetty  is especially endearing on  stage  as the stand-up. He  is  ensured an alternative   career, though  I don’t think he will need one  for a very long time. In comparison Anushka Shetty’s performance is  frigid. Maybe it’s  the  way her  character is written. This is a woman who has locked away all emotions because she fears them.

Their  interactive  energy is  infectious but  way too stretched  out.  Post the midpoint the  storytelling slackens in pace—we get the feeling that it’s not only the protagonists who are uncertain about their  future together—but  the last 45 minutes , set in the  suburbs  of  England. are  as  beautiful  to look  at  as they are in capturing the feelings of  two souls  who after drifting apart discover how self-limiting independence can  be.

Technically,this is a sound film. Nirav Shah’s camera  flatters the  characters  and locations, but never to deceive. There  are  just a handful  of songs  but they are filmed  with such infectious verve!  While Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty may not be  the  unblemished  rom-com that  you  so badly want  it  to be , it nevertheless climbs  high enough  to match  our  expectations  and  gives us  room to  know the  protagonists without  judging them. This is  much more than  what we usually get  from our movie  experience.

And yes ,  where  else but here  can we get Nagma Noodles?