“This milk is sour (ugh)” … (puts it back in the fridge) … “maybe tomorrow it will be fresh.” Larry Miller on divorced couples who get back together. This was the major thought that ran through my head while watching a tired married couple suddenly decide they weren’t so tired after all in Do Aur Do Pyaar.
Kavya (Vidya Balan) and Ani (Pratik Gandhi) have been together for fifteen years. Right now, they’re past going through the motions. They don’t share; they don’t have sex; they may as well sleep in separate beds. And both are seeing other people. Ani, who resembles an Indian John Oliver, is into Nora (Ileana D’Cruz), a third-rate actress who -nevertheless- isn’t his wife. Kavya favors a photographer named Vikram (Sendhil Ramamurthy, who still has not learned to shave properly since “Heroes”).
The funny thing about this film is while the core marriage is tired, these extramarital affairs seem tired as well. I’m sure at one point Ani was all supportive of Nora’s acting career and made time to go see her whenever possible. But as the film begins, they’ve clearly been together a while, and whatever spark there was isn’t so much anymore, but don’t tell that to Nora. Similarly, Vikram wants to run away with Kavya to New York City, but she ain’t going there. She’s not going to leave her Indian dental practice for this guy no matter how much she digs his inability to shave.
To shake things up, Kavya’s grandfather dies, which summons Kavya and Ani to the childhood home where the two first made whoopee as much younger adults … right when Vikram was first learning how not to shave. I should point out here that Ani is a screw up. He’s a dick to Kavya. He’s a dick to Nora. (He doesn’t really deserve either woman based on what I saw). We the audience overlook his dickery because he’s a wimpy, milquetoast kind of dick, but his faux pas collection comes out in full 
when confronted with Kavya’s extended family … and she suddenly remembers why she left her people years ago to be with her knight in erring nerd-dom. And suddenly, romance sparks anew.
So if you’re scoring at home, Kavya and Ani don’t really change as people, they just remember their pairing used to be more fun than it is now, and the movie presents this as the wonder of romance.
Never before have I felt for the “other” man/woman. They’re the homewrecker, right? Those jerks are the ones breaking up a perfectly good marriage, right?
Well …
Even if that is 100% true; it turns out these folks tend to be human as well, meaning they have thoughts and feelings and if they’ve been made promises, how are those promises any less compelling than the ones their current significant others made to the ones they’re cheating on?
Bottom line is I liked the rekindled marriage in real time, but I’m not much a fan in retrospect, and it’s hard to get behind a plot that dismisses 50% of its players while championing a dying marriage. One trip home, a few weeks of naan stuffing, and everything is changed forever? HA! Have you been married before, Shirsha Guha Thakurta? Good luck with that one.
Kavya & Ani had created their own Hell
When they got called to answer death’s knell
They forgot all their spleen
And made out like a teen
So they’re all better now, isn’t that swell?
Not Rated, 140 Minutes
Director: Shirsha Guha Thakurta
Writer: Amrita Bagchi, Eisha Chopra, Suprotim Sengupta
Genre: Stupid human tricks
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who fear “the other woman/man”
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “The other woman/man”
