Zee Studios and Benaras Mediaworks’ Middle-Class Love (UA) is the story of a middle-class family and how the youngest member of the family is bitten by the bug of being cool.
Yudi (Prit Kamani) lives with his father (Manoj Pahwa), mother (Sapna Sand) and elder brother, Guddu (Sanjay Bishnoi). It’s a middle-class family for whom every rupee counts. Yudi gets admission in Oakwood School which is frequented by the rich and elitist class. He tries to be cool by wearing branded clothes and spending beyond his modest means. In his bid to be cool, he tries to woo Sysha (Kavya Praveen Thapar) who is the hottest girl in the college. However, Sysha asks him to feign an affair with Ash (Eisha Singh) if he wants her (Sysha’s) love. Yudi falls in the trap. What happens to the love story of Yudi with Ash and of Yudi with Sysha?
All hell breaks loose when Yudi’s extravagant spending comes to the notice of his family. What happens to Yudi’s dream of flying high?
Yash Keswani and Sima Agarwal have written a nice story of the complexes of a middle-class boy who moves with rich friends. If their story is fresh, their screenplay is quite original and entertaining. However, the two love stories (of Yudi-Ash and Yudi-Sysha) are not very convincing. Since the love stories are not very well-written, the angle of Yudi saying that he wants to patch up the differences between Sysha and Ash doesn’t sound too purposeful for him to continue the affairs. Also, Ash saying that she had forgotten about her challenge to her cousin to woo Sysha looks half-baked. Likewise, Ash arriving at the conclusion that given a chance, Sysha would do the same thing with her (Ash) that she (Ash) had done with Sysha sounds too contrived. It is scenes like the above which give the audience the impression that the love tracks have not been worked upon in the story that is basically about friendship and a middle-class family. On the other hand, the second half has some extremely well-written emotional scenes. The scene in which Guddu stops Yudi from leaving home and drags him into the bedroom, the one in which Yudi lies down on Guddu’s bed, next to him, and the one in which Yudi apologises to his father in the principal’s chamber are all laden with heart-wrenching emotions. The climax speech by Yudi is a tear-jerker. Overall, the two writers have succeeded on the emotional side — whether in the portion dealing with the family drama or with the friendship drama. But the same can’t be said about the romantic drama. Suraj Giannani’s dialogues are the film’s mainstay and add greatly to the drama.
Prit Kamani is natural to the core. The young actor is pretty impressive as Yudi and wins hearts. He is extremely easy in front of the camera and also endearing. Eisha Singh lacks glamour but acts well in the role of Ash. Kavya Praveen Thapar looks glamorous and acts quite well as Sysha. Manoj Pahwa is splendid as the middle-class Sharmaji. He deserves distinction marks for a job wonderfully done. Sapna Sand excels as Yudi’s mother and plays the middle-class woman, trying her best to add to the family income, with conviction. Omkar Kulkarni lends decent support as Yudi’s friend, Pannu. Sanjay Bishnoi leaves a fine mark as Yudi’s brother, Guddu. Bhumika Dedhia and Junaid Safdar Khan (as Sysha’s friends, Naina and Alex) provide fine support. Shahnaaz Deshpande, Vedant Sinha, Akshay Bhagat, Deepti Sharma, Jyoti Gauba, Amit Sinha, Sawan and Rohan Joshi lend good support.
Ratnaa Sinha’s direction is nice. She has handled the emotional and fun scenes with maturity. Himesh Reshammiya’s music is melodious but the absence of hit songs is felt. The ‘Laagi chhoote na’ song is good. Lyrics (Shabbir Ahmed, Mayur Puri, Himesh Reshammiya, Shakeel Azmi and Nitin Mishra) are nice. Song picturisations (by Ratnaa Sinha, Remo D’Souza, Ahmed Khan and Jayesh Pradhan) are fresh. Prasad Sashte’s background music is okay. Cinematography (Sameer Arya and Manish Khushalani) is appealing. Bhagyashree Pande’s production designing is of a fine standard. Devendra Murdeshwar’s editing is sharp.
On the whole, Middle-Class Love is an entertainer but, unfortunately, awareness about the film is almost completely absent. As such, its business will have no correlation with its merits.
Released on 16-9-’22 at Metro Inox (daily 2 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay by Zee Studios. Publicity: dull. Opening: poor. …….Also released all over.
