IMAGE: A scene from Meethe Mein Kya Hai.

Key Points

• First-time director Radhika Bansal's Meethe Mein Kya Hai is a low key Diwali drama centred around a family reunion.
• The film attempts to explore family dynamics and conflicts but resolves them too neatly, lacking genuine emotional depth.
• Despite decent performances from the cast, particularly Ritwick Bhowmick, Shivika Rishi and Ayesha Raza, the writing is deemed too meek.

You know how the Hallmark holiday movies are designed to fill its target audience of sentimental fools with a warm fuzzy feeling? Meethe Mein Kya Hai is a bit like that. Set against the backdrop of Diwali, its slice-of-life enthusiasm aims for a low key charm.

The problem is, only the low key bit registers.

A Low-Key Family Reunion

First-time director Radhika Bansal's drama, centred around a family reunion, is about nothing in particular except follies and foibles of its folk unraveling against the festival of lights. Hosting this annual gathering at her sprawling Lucknow bungalow is the head of the Rastogi family (Rohini Hattangadi) even as her children, their partners and grandchildren lounge about devouring mathris with pickle, dissing pesky uncles and aunts while platters full of samosa, kachori and chai are slipped into the frames to lay bare its snack over storytelling momentum.

When it's not the arhar ki dal mentions and kebab over kadhi preferences, the tastefully-decorated home finds itself strewn in nostalgia of old LPs and scent of rajnigandha arrangements.

Somewhere in the middle of its 'all mood no meaning' objectives, Meethe Mein Kya Hai's casual chit chat alludes to the disquiet within.

A mother (Ayesha Raza) ruing her daughter's (Dalai) reckless decision to marry a divorcee (Vikram Bakshi) with a child, a pair of siblings (Raza, Abhay Kaul) hoping to talk to their stern mom (Hattangadi) about selling off this old property, a young widower's (Ritwik Bhowmik) inability to move on after his wife's tragic demise, a teenager's crush (Shivika Rishi) on an older guy (Bhowmik) -- conflicts get resolved as neatly as they are proposed.

Missed Opportunities for Depth

Despite her innocuous overtures, it's weird to hear a smitten 13 year old harp on the possibilities of a May-December romance in the future.

Worse is how Meethe Mein Kya Hai refuses to let the infatuation just be until it has turned a teenager's heartbreak into an embarrassment and the inspiration for a grieving guy to make headway. Weed does the trick on the rest.

Most of the cast delivers on point, especially Bhowmik, Rishi and Raza, but the writing is much too meek to scoop out the ardour in the premise in ways that Gulmohar did. For all its inoffensive allure and mildly won crisis, Meethe Mein Kya Hai's pursuit of happiness and finding joy in the little things exudes the emotionality of a greeting card, not life.

Meethe Mein Kya Hai streams on Netflix.

Meethe Mein Kya Hai Review Rediff Rating: