Mrs on Zee5 Review: The Great Indian Kitchen Remake Without Soul?
What would you say if a movie copied another film frame to frame and didn’t even credit the director of the original film?
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Arati Kadav’s Mrs. is almost an exact remake, minus the usual song-and-dance sequences, of the 2021 Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen.
While the film didn’t credit the technical and creative crew, it also didn’t credit Jeo Baby who directed The Great Indian Kitchen, the film Mrs. is based on.
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Released today on Zee5, Mrs. seems to tell a simple story about food, family and love, but slowly it reveals itself to be a feminist statement on Patriarchy.
Richa, played by Sanya Malhotra is married off to Diwakar, who is played by Nishant Dahiya and soon finds herself trapped in the endless cycle of household chores. As cooking, cleaning, and caretaking become her primary responsibilities, her own aspirations are pushed aside.
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While it is sad to observe the universality of the story, it also makes you wonder why this remake was necessary, when the original already exists on a streaming platform.
Arati Kadav is a visionary filmmaker. Her feature film Cargo was loved highly by fans. However, outside of the technical achievement of making Mrs., most of the credit for it belongs to Jeo Baby. Which is not even given to him.
Mrs. is almost identical to The Great Indian Kitchen. Almost.
Mrs. lacks the boldness and depth that made the original so impactful. Jeo Baby, despite being a male director, delivered a brutally honest portrayal of women’s everyday struggles, while Mrs. hesitates to confront these issues with the same intensity.
The only highlight of the film was Sanya Malhotra whose performance was brilliant. While she plays it safe like costars Kanwaljeet, and Nishant Dahiya, the result is a good performance.
The actors together enable Mrs. to ask the important question – How radical must everyday feminism be to break free from the cycles of silent oppression?
