A Netflix India original film, Meenakshi Sundareshwar is a comedic look at a long distance arranged marriage. Can a couple that barely knows each other make the distance work?
The Gist: After accidentally ending up together via an arranged marriage meeting gone wrong, Meenakshi and Sundareshwar begin their married life immediately in a long distance relationship. While Meenakshi is in Madurai with Sundareshwar’s entire family, Sundar settles in Bangalore at a job that inexplicably only hires bachelors and he must lie to his entire firm about being married. Sundar and Meenakshi try to keep their magic alive via phone calls, text messages and some ill-advised cybersex, but struggle with the distance. Meenakshi decides to surprise Sundar in Bangalore, but her nice gesture is met with anger from Sundar who is scared about his position at his new company. The couple has to figure out whether their relationship can withstand this test or if it’s been doomed from the start.
What Will It Remind You Of?: There are some North vs South India sentiments that will remind you of the Bollywood film 2 States, but the crux of the long distance relationship strives to have the heart of the beautiful indie film Like Crazy.
Performance Worth Watching: One half of the main duo, Sanya Malhotra as Meenakshi brings a warmth and kindness to her role, even as she is dealing with the shorter end of the stick in this arrangement.
Memorable Dialogue: “This isn’t just about us. It’s also about me.” Meenakshi is very real during one of their phone calls and puts words to one of the tenets of a long distance relationship: you have to make sure that you’re not only keeping the magic alive between you, but also taking care of yourself.
Sex and Skin: There’s a small kissing montage and a fun roleplay cybersex moment, but nothing too scandalous.
Our Take: On the surface level, the premise of this film has a lot to explore. Arranged marriages, while not as prominent in modern India as they once were, still provide a fertile ground to understand personal relationships between people from different points of view. Adding a long distance relationship on top of that only increases the fascinating study of what makes a relationship work.
But unfortunately the execution of these ideas falls flat. Starting from the couple’s first meeting, in which the bride’s family comes to the wrong home for their introduction, the chemistry between the two actors feels forced. The dialogue doesn’t do as much as it should to show us what draws them to one another; instead we get a weird forced interaction in which Meenakshi asks what will make him a good husband and Sundar responds by with a soliloquy about his career as an engineer.
It’s ironic, then, that his career is what drives them apart. The entire premise of a company that only hires bachelors is absurd, and not having that sturdy basis for plot makes the whole film fall flat. None of the following chaos of hiding the relationship or managing the expectations of each other via long distance is really that interesting without a solid reason to keep them apart. All of this is made even worse because Meenakshi is stuck with Sundar’s family who have such an old-school mentality that they won’t let her work a real job or have male friends.
If you can get past that, there is a nice central performance by Sanya Malhotra, who imbues the film with its heart and brings much-needed emotion to all aspects of the story. But unfortunately, it’s not enough to save the endeavor.
Our Call: SKIP IT. With a two and a half hour runtime and a shaky premise, there’s a lot left to be desired here.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, and Brown Girl Magazine. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.