How often do you see four married middle-class women enjoying the sun and sand in Goa without the company of their husbands in Hindi cinema? Jahaan Chaar Yaar ventures into a zone usually reserved for naughty boys in all age groups and tells the world that women could also say, Dil Chahta Hai! But after promising a fun ride, the film gets busy preaching that for every awful wife, there is an equally dreadful husband in this universe.
Add to the lackadaisical technical support, and we have a well-intentioned film that fails to do justice to its strong female cast. Writer-director Kamal Pandey has come up through the television circuit, and one could notice bubbles of a daily soap in the dramedy.
It is a coming-of-age story of four friends — Shivangi, Sakina, Neha, and Mansi — who are struggling in their married lives, but are not ready to face the truth. On a fortuitous break in Goa, the girls get to open up about their self-seeking spouses who are eroding their identity and self-respect bit by bit, but before they could enjoy their ‘freedom’ from their restrictive lives, they get entangled in a murder investigation.
What works for the film is the natural flair of the leading ladies that compensates for the average writing and overacting by the male members of the cast. As Shivangi, Swara Bhasker aces the part of a housewife who has been reduced to a maid by her husband and in-laws. Armed with the diction of Eastern Uttar Pradesh/Bihar and her penchant for self-deprecatory humour, Swara keeps the innate spark of Shivangi alive and comes up with a performance that is absolutely relatable.
Shikha Talsania is not bad either as the wife who stands up to a philandering spouse. Pooja Chopra and Meher Vij complete the foursome that may be feeling stifled in their relationships, but have not given up on their zest for life.
Their camaraderie interspersed with rib-tickling one-liners keeps you invested. Kamal succeeds in creating the ambiance of small-town India and the domestic politics that pervades the households. But the film does have some refreshing moments that we usually don’t find in Hindi cinema. There is a reference to the newly minted law against the instant Triple Talaq that has arguably empowered Muslim women in suffocating relationships. The way the daughter of Shivangi tells her mother not to be a doormat is inspiring, and the married women’s response to a rakish stranger threatens to bring the house down, before Kamal switches to a hackneyed third act.
Jahaan Chaar Yaar is currently running in theatres
