Meet Cute Review: The last episode, titled ‘Ex-Girl Friend’, stands out with a heart-tugging, surreal story

In each of the five stories, the men are irresistibly adorable. Their supernatural sweetness comes in the way of the viewer experiencing the show with high expectations.

The last episode, titled ‘Ex-Girl Friend’, stands out for its nuanced portrayal of a character’s inner turmoil manifesting itself as social awkwardness. On a breezy night, sitting on a beach, two women (Sunainaa and Sanchitha Poonacha) talk about Ajay (Govind Padmasoorya) after a dinner date takes falls apart. The viewer’s impression of Ajay undergoes a shift as the 30-minute-long episode plays out. The message of the need to embrace imperfections hits home. This segment also has a slice-of-life conversation between a father and his doting daughter.

A concerned, relatable mother

‘In L(AW)OVE’ is the second-best episode deepened by Rohini’s natural reactions and body language. After Amani in the recent ‘Oke Oka Jeevitham’, she is one onscreen mother who is so non-sanitized. When she spots her son with a young woman (Aakanksha Singh) on a road, her instinct is to be upset that his doting son has a secret life. She is not angry but mildly disturbed at what she has to learn from a stranger at a veterinary clinic. “Relationships that make you feel lonely are more painful than loneliness itself”, is a line that hits you hard.

A dreamy set up

‘Star Struck’ is dragged down by straightforward writing despite the welcome commentary on how female actors fear sexual harassment in seemingly benign settings. Adah Sharma plays a star heroine who ends up sharing the same living space with a male doctor (Shiva Kandukuri) who is unaware of her popularity. She loves that his flat is pretty organized and soaks in the journal entries that brim with nostalgia. His not-so-subtle flirtation with her on a rainy night makes it all too dreamy. The theme of “enjoying the silences as much as the conversations” feels dry although not forced.

Some ideas are too familiar

The most flimsy ones have to be ‘Meet The Boy’ and ‘Old Is Gold’. The former is about a wannabe married couple (Varsha Bollamma’s Swathi and Ashwin Kumar’s Abhi) trying to shed their initial inhibitions and trying to learn about each other over a dinner date. The lines are basic, the characters are generic and the episode simply goes through the motions. Unlike the songs in the other episodes, this one doesn’t quite appeal.

As for ‘Old Is Gold’, it projects patience in any personal setting as the magic wand, making mood swings and tantrums look too trivial. The importance of intimacy is sought to be highlighted through a random conversation that an old man (Sathyaraj) and a young working woman (Ruhani Sharma) strike up at a consulate. This done-to-death trope doesn’t help matters: A loving old couple who have outgrown petty quarrels and everyday skirmishes.