Pati Patni Aur Wo Do Review: Don't let the title fool you, this is a GENUINELY FUN comedy NOT about infidelity

Setting Up the Chaos

The film wastes no time with its introductions. Three of the four primary characters are established quickly: Rakul Preet Singh's Nilofar, a forest officer; Wamiqa Gabbi's Aparna, a passionate reporter; and then of course the star forest officer himself, an absolute pro who operates almost like a local legend in his corner of the jungle, Prajapati Pandey, played by Ayushmann Khurrana.

As Prajapati heroically captures a leopard in the opening stretch, we learn that he and Aparna are married to each other and rather happily so. They enjoy a lovely life together, they are clearly fond of each other and everything is thoroughly hunky-dory, while Rakul Preet Singh's Nilofar occupies the role of very close friend to both of them.

Enter Sara Ali Khan

It is the arrival of Sara Ali Khan's Chanchal that detonates everything. She walks into Prajapati's office and before one can assume that this is the part where the male gaze takes over and attraction starts brewing, the film sidesteps that entirely.

Ayushmann's Prajapati recognises her immediately as an old college friend, genuinely puzzled about why she has surfaced after all these years. As it turns out, she has not come for anything romantic. She has come to ask for help, except the help she needs is not really help so much as a massive ask that completely upends the life of Prajapati Pandey.

One Mishap After Another

From that point, one comedy of errors leads to the next and then absolute madness ensues as more characters get introduced, more misunderstandings pile up and everything becomes, to use the most accurate possible description, completely batshit crazy. Amidst all this, the film keeps trying to land a message of its own, weaving it through the situational comedy and the over the top moments that keep arriving with increasing frequency.

This is the Mudassar Aziz formula: mishap comedy of errors that bleeds into situational comedy, with jokes sputtered throughout and characters doing increasingly ridiculous things. It works when the tonality and pitch are right and here, Pati Patni Aur Wo Do does get it right to a certain extent.

The Performances

There are scenes that are genuinely chucklesome and punches that land with reasonable effectiveness. However, the over the topness is at times almost wondrous to behold and it is particularly surprising that Ayushmann Khurrana, who is otherwise a stellar comedic performer, goes a little too far into caricature territory on a few occasions. That said, it is only on a few instances because there are callbacks and subtler moments where Ayushmann finds the right frequency and brings exactly the correct amount of goofiness to Prajapati Pandey.

Sara Ali Khan's Chanchal manages to bring a certain subtlety and nuance to her character and she performs rather well when playing it subdued, letting the emotion sit quietly rather than projecting it outward. She falters slightly when the material demands over-emoting or loudness, where it does not feel effective enough, but in the aggregate it is still a pretty decent showing.

Rakul Preet Singh's Nilofar is one of the standouts of the film, which makes it all the more frustrating that she has been saddled with a peculiar character quirk of being unable to speak English properly, which is apparently meant to be funny but simply is not. It is fortunately to Rakul Preet's considerable acting ability that she powers through this questionable creative decision and infuses Nilofar with real character. She plays her as almost tomboyish, someone who also happens to look absolutely beautiful, and lends the film a perfect bromantic warmth without ever tipping into being one of the boys. She does a stellar job throughout and looks stunning in one of the songs as well.

Wamiqa Gabbi as Aparna brings her signature charm and a remarkable screen presence to the character. When the madness is erupting around her, she holds her own with a grounded performance that gives the chaos something to bounce off. She is also given some genuinely good moments and makes the most of every single one of them.

The Real Scene Stealer

In an ensemble this sizeable, the supporting cast is broadly decent but the biggest standout is Ayesha Raza. She is handed the extraordinarily loud character of Sara Ali Khan's on-screen Bua and she plays it with absolute finesse. This character had every possible ingredient to go spectacularly wrong. There are so many ways the loudness of the role could have tipped into being actively grating, the kind of character that makes you want to look away every time she appears on screen.

Instead, Ayesha Raza makes her so recognisable and so oddly endearing that you end up thinking that everyone probably has a Bua exactly like this somewhere in their family. Despite all the madness and volume, she carries an enduring quality throughout that is entirely her own doing.

Where It Stumbles

The film does falter considerably in patches, particularly in the portrayal of comic scenes that are evidently designed to be funny but simply are not. It also stumbles badly under the sheer ambition of its finale, a car chase sequence that involves a CGI fox and approximately every other element the production could throw at the screen simultaneously. It is too much, too many moving parts, too much noise, and it affects the overall pitch and tonality of the film in a way that is hard to ignore.