Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi Review

In A R Sajeev's pulpy feministic marital dramedy Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi, Omkar Naidu (Tharun Bhascker), a moustache-twirling, chauvinistic husband, gets his due from his long-suffering wife, Prashanthi (Isha Rebba). For a short while after their marriage, Naidu appears to soften his ways under Prashanthi's earnest devotion. But soon enough, his true personality comes to light when he takes to hitting her over the smallest issue, and worse, getting less and less remorseful with every slap.

Even though the subject matter is grave, and Prashanthi is repeatedly hurt by Naidu's actions, the tone of the film isn't serious or soulful, nor does it aspire to be. Instead, it opts for farce, offering a broadly comic take on the "empowered woman" trope, in which the heroine - spoiler alert - awakens to her plight and decides to fight back. The power in empowered, of course, refers less to agency than to Prashanthi's karate-style sidekick.

The husband-wife fighting that ensues is as much inspired by Pitt's and Jolie's Mr & Mrs Smith as by Vijay Sethupathi-Nitya Menen's Sir Madam. But the comparison must stop there, because this film lacks the style and surety of those entertaining marital action dramas.

Tonal confusion plagues it from start to finish. Even in the very same scene, Isha Rebba seems to be playing Vijaya Shanthi redux with utmost gravity, while Tarun Bhascker gives a winking, slapstick performance. This mismatch between Rebba and Bhascker is grave enough to sink the movie.

Sajeev's characters are flat and tactless. Both Naidu's male ego and Prashanthi's learned helplessness are shown to be the result of their gendered upbringings. Prashanthi grows up under the thumb of the men in her family - her father, brother and her mama (Goparaju Vijay) - and without any agency. Naidu, by contrast, is nothing but agency. Raised without a father, spoiled rotten by his mother and egged on by his mama (Brahmaji), he grows into an obstinate owner of a small fishery business and can barely hold any conversation, unless it is in fish metaphors.

By the third act, the story spins out a set of hurried realisations and denouements that are as unearned and tacky as TV serial plot-lines. Naidu's mother has a sudden change-of-heart, there is a teary hospital showdown, and a comically staged courtroom drama with Rohini Noni playing an attorney and Brahmanandam playing a judge. The film reaches a new low when the judge's punishment for the male chauvinists in the courtroom is to have them write down the three qualities that a woman wants from a marriage a thousand times (the answer is: freedom, independence and equality).

Pop feminism can be fertile ground for comedy (see Subham, 2024). Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi wants to tickle us silly while also delivering its message from the pulpit of a social drama. It ends up doing neither. It is too tame for genuine comedy and too juvenile for meaningful commentary.

Isha Rebba is earnest but self-conscious, never quite pulling off her character's more light-hearted scenes. Even the reliably comic Tharun Bhascker struggles to fully land Naidu's wannabe-alpha-male swagger (though he does nail the Godavari accent), leaving Brahmaji and Goparaju Vijay, who play the casually-sexist mamas of the leads, as the film's most memorable performers.

As far as the spiciness of marital dramedies go, Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi is weak sauce.