Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty Review: Naveen Polishetty Shines In A Safe Dramedy

Director: Mahesh Babu P

Writer: Mahesh Babu P

Cast: Naveen Polishetty, Anushka Shetty, Murali Sharma

Duration: 149 minutes

Available in: Theatres

It's hard to nitpick and complain about a film like Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty (MSMP) because the film pretty much achieves what it set out to do: to tell a simple but heartfelt story about the need for companionship laced with humour thoroughly and slightly move you towards the climax by bringing its emotional core to the foreground. But the problem is that its ambitions itself are so low.

A Carefully Formulated Romcom

MSMP is exactly that kind of simple, safe film in which you can see the closure of the character arcs the moment they are introduced. That's not necessarily a bad thing because the film ain't a thriller to keep us guessing but a romcom in which the the guy and the girl share different beliefs (no, not what we saw in Kushi last week) about love and life. Now, MSMP is not about what happens but how it happens. This is where the energy of Naveen Polishetty comes into play. He infuses life into a rather simplistic story and shoulders it pretty much by himself. The film keeps trying to keep up with his energy and even when ideas are repeated, the humour keeps it going. I wish I could say the same about the film's emotional core because that's where the dullness pervading the story takes over the charm on the surface level.

MSMP is yet another story of opposites. Anvitha Ravali Shetty (Anushka Shetty) is a successful chef in the UK leading a pretty sorted life; she doesn't believe in love and the institution of marriage. But when she learns that her ill mother (Jayasudha) doesn't have much time left, the question of companionship arises. Eventually, she realises that there is a huge void in her life that can only filled by a loved one. While she decides to go for IUI (there's even a great joke about this abbreviation), she is particular about having a healthy, decent, and intelligent man being the father of her child. The moment Anvitha learns that most of the donors are ungroomed men, she decides to find her own donor—someone who is clean and decent, inside and out. A little too judgemental, no, Anvitha? And then enters Sidhu Polishetty (Naveen Polishetty), an IT employee aspiring to make it big as a stand-up comedian. What follows is a series of misunderstandings, an emotional transformation, and a coming-of-age arc complemented by a love story, all wrapped neatly with MANY jokes.

Humour Saves The Day

But as I said, it almost feels unfair to complain because the film reaches its mark: it makes you laugh many times, even if it has to sometimes rely on double entendres around sperm donation and karyam (sex). But there's a lot of clean humour too. Sidhu's interplay with his dad (Murali Sharma in a memorable role after a long time) and Anvitha herself are really fun. Be it exchanges between Sidhu and Anvitha during their first formal meeting (Raju and train track dialogue) or the scene in which Anivtha enquires Sidhu's mother about the health issues in Sidhu's family, they are smart and entertaining because they are all a part of Anvitha's play. The same cannot be said about Sidhu's stand-up set pieces because they have this artificial 'been-there-heard-that-joke' energy. The humour works best when Sidhu has no clue about what's going on.

Plays It Safe

There is an attempt to make the romantic arc convincing to an extent but it remains just functional. We are told why Naveen fell for Anvitha but do not feel this blossoming of love because the first priority is always given to the jokes. The same goes with Anvitha's emotional arc, we understand her pain and her wanting for a support system, but we do not feel it. There's always some distance between us and Anvitha. And Anushka herself doesn't feel like the Anushka we knew. Likewise, we see the sweetness between Sidhu and his dad when they have a heartfelt conversation towards the end, but we do not feel it. Perhaps the emotions in MSMP are too carefully constructed to feel organic.  

But what keeps MSMP going is an effervescent Naveen and his comic act although his character is certainly not as impressionable as Agent Sai Sreenivasa Athreya or Jogipet Srikanth. We still remember those films because their worlds were crazy from start to finish; they took risks. Compared to those, MSMP feels a tad safe and formulaic for his oddball energy. The film is, without a doubt, fun, but it's also forgettable. To sum MSMP up, as a character says and believes, "Good is not good enough."

Watch The Official Trailer of Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty