Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty Review

I don't care for romcoms dealing in matters of sex. Must be the badly-written innuendos where the punchline is infertility or intercourse. But the fact is, in our culture we don't broach such sensitive topics in straightforward terms. We use subtext and metaphors, ellipses and eyewinks. Ideas get lost in translation. Gestures get misunderstood. And the confusion that arises from the mix-ups is grist for the comedy mill (Remember Ante Sundaraniki?). When this brand of comedy fails, it fails spectacularly, but if is done right, it is a true delight. Thankfully, Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty gets it right.

MSMP is not exactly a groundbreaking story - Anvitha Shetty (Anushka Shetty) wants to have a child, but doesn't believe in the complications of love and marriage. Being a meticulous person - she is a renowned chef - she goes off on an elaborate search for the ideal sperm donor. On a whiteboard, she notes a long list of traits like "emotional detachment" and "moral ethics" she wants in the man. Traits that Sidhu Polishetty (Naveen Polishetty), engineer by day and budding standup comedian by night, possesses - somewhat. Over the course of a few meet-ups, they click. Only, he isn't aware that she is busy evaluating his genes while he is busy falling in love with her.

Miss Shetty... gets the tone of its characters right. Shetty is subdued and mature, while Polishetty is effortlessly charming and care-free. Shetty has good reasons for staying single. She is settled and sorted, but she also carries a fear of loneliness and abandonment that she is unable to voice. It is her layered character treatment that pays off in the final scenes. Sidhu is not happy about Anvitha's choices, but he never stoops to manipulation to win her over. Their pairing is egoless and drama-free.

Not every scene is equally progressive or sophisticated, though. "You are so narrow-minded," Shetty berates Polishetty in the only fight of the film, even though she herself has been rejecting men for superficial reasons. A bespectacled nerdy guy is an immediate no. A guy with a face tattoo, she literally runs away from. However, the occasional stereotyping doesn't take away from the overall mature treatment of its subject matter. There are the requisite jokes about the sperm donation room, but the jokes land, clean of cringe.

Naveen Polishetty carries whatever brand of comedy - veg, non-veg, slapstick, stage - so capably that I think he would find success as a comic if this acting thing doesn't work out. Polishetty handles the dreaded standup mic like a pro. He's got the stage presence, the audience interaction element, even the big "that's my set, guys thank you!" sign-off down pat. And as an audience, you laugh - really laugh - at his performance as if we were seeing him live on a stage and not on a screen. He lands even worn-out staples about how every Indian becomes an engineer before they follow their dream.

Anushka brings refined elegance and confidence to her performance as Anvitha. When Sidhu's friend teases him about Anvitha being out of his league, he might as well be referring to Anushka, the "lady superstar" being beyond the reach of a relative newcomer like Naveen. So to play somebody as aloof, even inaccessible, as Anvitha, Anushka ends up being the perfect choice.

It isn't just these two characters that make MSMP a breezy romcom, though. Murali Sharma plays the typical disappointed middle-class father who has the sense to stay out of his son's way and let him figure his life out for himself. Tulasi plays the stereotypical devout mother who doesn't meddle, either. Both parents show concern for Shetty when he becomes a heartbroken drunk, but they treat their son like an adult and make space for his problems to play out.

MSMP may not be treading uncharted waters with its story, but with clever casting choices and a nuanced script, it will satisfy romcom fans and save this flailing genre of Telugu cinema from the precipice of death. It also introduces a smart new voice to the industry in the form of debut director-writer Mahesh Babu. And it cements Naveen Polishetty is the most exciting new talent to enter into the fray in recent times.