Three of Us movie review: The brilliance of Shefali Shah and Jaideep Ahlawat shines through

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Cast: Shefali Shah, Jaideep Ahlawat, Swanand Kirkire
Director: Avinash Arun
Rating: 4/5
Runtime: 88 mins

Most of us aren't big fans of chasing unrequited love - a genre overcrowded with confused men unable to make up their minds, tainted with the selfishness with which they conduct themselves. Three of Us has a strong vein of a woman chasing down her childhood sweetheart. But this is an Avinash Arun Dhaware film and he knows how to not trivialise the emotions of any of his characters. His story is precious to him and he cares for everyone in it - from an English teacher tearing down the garb of innocence donned by a middle-aged woman in front of her husband of decades to an old lady - known as the local witch - living alone in a hut after banished from the village. Along with writers Omkar Achyut Barve and Arpita Chatterjee, he layers everyone with more than their physical presence.

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Avinash tells us the story of Shailja - played by the wonderful Shefali Shah. Her husband Dipankar (played by Swanand Kirkire) aptly puts her frame of mind into words - she is sometimes looking for herself. Shailja has recently been diagnosed with dementia and it's true, she is beginning to slip up more. The details are blurring in her mind. So the poha might not have salt. She will forget her friend is going for singing lessons every weekend. The usual fare, nothing extraordinary. But the awareness that her memories - good and bad are short-lived, plays on her mind.

Don't we all do this? Seek out old friends when the details get blurry for us. Shefali's Shailja does just that. She, with her husband in tow, goes back to her childhood home - a space that packs in the sweet love of her growing-up days and the trauma of losing a loved one. There is a certain urgency in Shailja to hold her memories in both fists, but her memory is like sand, quickly slipping out. In her old town, she seeks out a certain Pradeep Kamat (played by Jaideep Ahlawat) - her childhood sweetheart, that unrequited love story we began this review with. It takes you a while to understand what draws her to Pradeep. It's not chemistry - the two sit awkwardly at the first meeting - well knowing their boundaries, and tossing between aap, tum and tu to address each other. Her husband is with her. His wonderfully understanding wife is at home. Then what's the lure of Pradeep for Shailja? It's the beauty of familiarity, you realise a few scenes in. He goes back to writing again and his wife playfully complains that 12 years of marriage and not even a couplet, and how Shailja inspired a whole poem out of him.

And Shailja? Shailja finally is in a space where she remembers every tiny detail, the geography of the house she lived in as a 14-year-old, every alley, dance moves taught to her as a kid, the trauma of losing a sibling. Pradeep's entry marks the return of her feelings, a lot of it life's mundaneness had stolen away from her. Her husband silently grudges the joy she is feeling, deducing that there's love lost between them. But the simplicity and tranquility of the mundane is equally joyous. Swanand's brilliance as an actor shows as he aids the ensemble with his sturdy presence.

This unrequited love story has so little to do with romance and that's the beauty of it. It's about finding the innocence of those years in our lives when our hearts were so big that the world felt like a boundless space. Or maybe that line from Celine Song's gem of a film - Past Lives where a character says, "You make my world so much bigger and I'm wondering if I do the same for you?" Shailja didn't want to live wondering. In an exquisite final sequence, she and Pradeep speak of the last time they'd met as kids. Some unsaid apologies were verbalised. Some silences spoke louder than words.

The film shines because of the brilliance of its actors - Shefali Shah and Jaideep Ahlawat, who play their parts with the delicate handling it merits. It's not the most brilliant movie he has made. It's definitely not the most perfect movie in his repertoire. But some movies are made for the soul - where the artistes heal from the regrets of the roads not taken and help you make peace with the life that didn't choose you. I think this is the director's take on this line from Ocean Vuong's novel - OnEarth, We Are Briefly Gorgeous. "I miss you more than I remember you."