And Mrs: Aisling Bea, Billie Lourd Starrer Is A Nifty Nibble On Necrogamy

For those who came in ‘late’ (RIP) Mrs is about necrogamy, an outdated law in Britain that allows you to marry your dead partner.This is not a new concept for Indian moviegoers: In Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana Sharmila Tagore remains wedded to her dead beloved and even carries his child. Nothing so drastic for Gemma(Aisling Bea). But yeah, Gemma’s could-have-been sister-in-law Audrey (Billie Lourd, she is Carrie Fisher of Star Wars’ daughter) is pregnant. Audrey is a lesbian who has given her womb to a gay couple for their baby.Wait! I am jumping the gun. That’s easy to do in a screenplay (Melissa Bubnic) which is as eager to hop skip and jump as a frog out of a well for the day. There is plenty of conversation, all jokey banter, and some of it, like the entire episode of the dead bridegroom-to-be’s friend Tim(Nish Kumar) annoying everyone with his shallow insensitivity, doesn’t land.ALSO READ: Ishaan Khatter 'Objectified' In The Perfect Couple: Changing Gaze On Indian Male Actors In Hollywood The film would have benefited immensely from reducing the number of characters. They are like unwanted guests at a post-funeral gathering. But hey, no one is perfect! The protagonist of this brittle but succulent comedy is not trying to be.Gemma, played with relish by Irish stand-up comedian Aisling Bea, just wants to give her bereavement some breathing space by allowing her mind and heart to take over the thought of marrying the man she loved to death. Pun intended! When Gemma announces her plan to marry her dead fiancée Nathan (Colin Hanks, who is the great Tom Hanks’s son) Gemma’s mother points out the obvious hurdle. “Darling, Nathan is dead.”Gemma won’t let a minor problem like death get in the way of her plans. Her plans to make the marriage happen with the help of her pregnant bohemian Audrey is a hoot, albeit a wee annoying in its impractical intensity. Nonetheless, the principal performances are persuasive even in the throes of preposterousness. The persuasion of the Lord Chief Justice (Harriet Walter, riding the wry waves with a bit too much aplomb) for permission to marry the dead is not as funny as director Daniel Reisinger thinks. But most of the plot, though bordering on incredulity, succeeds in nudging a chuckle out of us.At the end of And Mrs, one realizes how deeply sorrowful the narrative is. All the diversionary banter and backslapping about a wedding with a ghost just didn’t allow us to feel the grief within.A word on the 1970 chartbuster David Cassidy’s I Think I Love You which serves as the theme song in the film. It won’t do for music sales what Mama Mia did for ABBA, but after watching And Mrs, you would for sure seek out Cassidy’s corny love song on the internet.